Monday's TV highlights

7.30PM, TV2
MY HOUSE MY CASTLE
We all know buying a house is one of, if not the most, stressful things you will do in your life. So tonight, the team give you some advice on how to handle it. Plus, possibly of even more help will be the tips on how to speak the language of real estate agents.

8PM, TV2
NZ IDOL
It's that time again. Who will be going home after last night's show, which was all about getting your "groove" on?

8.30PM, TV3
THE UNIT
With large parts of the world on terror alert, it was only a matter of time before it increasingly became fodder for TV drama. Shows such as 24 and Spooks have had good mileage out of the faceless foe threatening the Western world, and now this gung-ho drama tackles terrorists head-on.

After four seasons as the honourable and stoic David Palmer on 24, watching Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer wrestle with baddies and tote weaponry, Dennis Haysbert decided he wanted some of that action.

So, at the beginning of the current season of 24, former President Palmer was assassinated, allowing Haysbert to take up the role of Jonas Blane, the jut-jawed leader of a special forces unit sent on covert ops at home and abroad.

He is joined by Scott Foley (Felicity), who plays rookie Bob Brown, and Robert Patrick (Walk the Line), as Colonel Tom Ryan, the unit's tough but ethically challenged commander.

While the cast is promising, the creative team behind the series heightens expectations. Leading American dramatist David Mamet (Ronin, The Spanish Prisoner) has joined Shawn Ryan (creator of The Shield) to adapt Eric Haney's book Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counter-terrorist Unit.

And they have balanced the plentiful high-octane, high-testosterone action with the background story of the soldiers' wives waiting back home. The women in their lives have their own code of honour, sticking together and keeping secret the men's line of business. Tonight, while the men are off foiling a plane hijacking, Blane's wife Molly (Regina Taylor) lays down the law to Brown's spouse Kim (Audrey Marie Anderson).


8.30PM, TV2
ER
Finally, someone stands up to Weaver and it shocks everyone. Meanwhile, Gallant has a surprise for Neela; and Kovac and Clemente vie for the same job.

9.30PM, PRIME
SECONDS FROM DISASTER
There's still so much intrigue around why Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. In this documentary, survivors tell their stories and investigators examine how the building collapsed.

10PM, TV ONE
CARRIE AND BARRY
In the return of this comedy series, starring Neil Morrissey (from Men Behaving Badly), we see the usually laid-back, 40-something couple of Carrie and Barry with their lives in turmoil. Barry's lost his taxi licence and needs a new job; Carrie finds she's adopted; and Barry's daughter Sinead becomes a traffic warden and has a whirlwind romance with someone her dad hates.


MOVIES
[rated out of 5]

8.30PM, SKY MOVIES 2
MONSTER IN LAW
Herald rating: * *
Jane Fonda plays an obsessive mother recovering from a mental breakdown, who re-enters her son's life just as he falls in love and gets engaged to a free-spirited dog-walker, played by Jennifer Lopez. A tedious domestic war breaks out between the two females. (2005)

9.50PM, RIALTO SKY DIGITAL
30 DAYS UNTIL I'M FAMOUS
Herald rating: * * *
Comedy about a Latina girl living in Los Angeles, who is offered the chance to become a pop diva. (2004)

10.15PM, SKY MOVIES 2
SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
Herald rating: * * * *
Julia Roberts stars in this thriller. When her husband (Patrick Bergin) becomes more than threatening, she fakes her own death and creates a new life and identity. (1991)