Tonight in HD: August 16

NCIS (TV3, 8.30)

Friends (TV2, 6.30, R) ✫✫✫✫

Rachel and Phoebe compete to be Monica’s maid of honour, but Monica doesn’t want to make the decision; Chandler tries to apologise to a girlfriend from his youth; Ross and Joey awake from a deep sleep that deeply troubles them.

Shortland Street (TV2, 7.00) ✫✫✫

Jill and Callum patch things up; a new nurse charms Bella; Nicole knocks over a special visitor.

Under the Grill (TV3, 8.00) ✫✫✫

Season premiere: Australian celebrity chef Sean Connolly is given $4 million and 100 days to open an award-winning and profitable restaurant in Auckland in time to for the Rugby World Cup.

Grey’s Anatomy (TV2, 8.30) ✫✫

Meredith and Lexie’s father, Thatcher Grey, returns to Seattle Grace with stomach pains — and a new, 20-something-year-old girlfriend. Reviews: Wall Street Journal, Examiner.

NCIS (TV3, 8.30, 5.1) ✫✫

The team is assigned to protect Ziva’s father, when his attendance at a NCIS conference leads to some unexpected surprises. Part one of two. Reviews: The TV Obsessed, Boom Tron.

Private Practice (TV2, 9.30) ✫✫

After tragedy strikes the Montgomery family, Addison goes home to Connecticut and Sam and her friends decide to join her.

Hamish & Andy’s Gap Year (TV3, 9.30) ✫

Former Rove cast members Hamish and Andy broadcast their gap year trip to America from a makeshift studio in a Brooklyn factory in front of a live audience.

Nothing Trivial (TV One, 11.05, R) ✫✫

A new team member sets the cat among the pigeons for Catherine and Mac; Emma’s latest romance is a loaded gun when it comes to Brian.

Medium (TV3, 11.10, 5.1, R) ✫✫

Kurtwood Smith reprises his guest-star role as FBI agent Edward Cooper, who materialises as a ghost to help Allison catch a criminal.

Cold Case (TV One, 12.05, R) ✫✫