Home (Tyne Tees); Coronation Street (ITV1)

HOME, in the interior design show of the same name, is a place where rooms are always clean and tidy, where the scene is picture perfect.

Home, for the Hillmans in Coronation Street, is a place where on-the-run killer dad returns home, binds and gags the family, then takes them on a family outing - to the bottom of the local canal.

We left the car, with them all trapped inside, sinking to the bottom on Wednesday night. Who stays? Who goes? The phone lines are open now. Only joking, although I don't reckon the public vote would save Gail the gerbil from a watery grave.

Serial killer Richard Hillman deserves a medal for gagging her. Ever since discovering that she'd been sleeping with a serial killer, she's been behaving like Lady Macbeth in her mad scene. All goggle eyes, shaking of the hair, and hands held up in horror, like a gerbil who's just seen Richard Gere enter the room. If Richard had ever been brought to trial, he could have pleaded insanity - hers, not his.

At the height of the drama Gail called her husband "Norman Bates with a briefcase", a strange reference to the Psycho psycho as Mr Bates liked dressing up in his mother's clothes and stabbing people in the shower. It set the mind racing about the games Richard and Gail played behind closed doors.

Anyway, tonight we find out if gerbils can swim - and no remarks about Gail looking like a drowned rat either - and if the Hillmans live, die or sail way in their underwater car to star in a spin-off series called 20,000 Leagues Under The Manchester Ship Canal.

Back at Home, presenter Vicky Locklin was viewing Newcastle's first £1m penthouse, a home four times the size of the average estate four-bedroom house. If that's out of your price range, never fear. For £120,000 you can move into a first floor, one-bedroom apartment with a rotten view.

They're contained in a former Victorian factory that's been converted into 48 modern. luxury apartments. Architect Bill Hopper, a Newcastle lad himself, has opted for a combination of New York loft-style living and a modern contemporary look. So, asked Vicky, how would he feel if he visited one of the flats to find the owner's decoration extended to flock wallpaper, shagpile carpet and chintz?

"Disappointed," he replied, adding: "That's the diplomatic answer because they wouldn't be making the maximum use of what they've got".

We also visited the home of former fashion designer Wayne Hemingway. This has an unusual toilet - it was chosen from the Armitage Shanks prison range.

The minimalist house in West Sussex also has a large notice in the driveway with the word HOME printed in large letters. "You know you're not supposed to work here," he said of its significance. If only the Street's tricky Dicky had arrived with a sign saying KILLER hanging round his neck, Gail would have been saved a lot of heartache.