Monday's Best Bets on TV

“The Closer” (9 p.m., TNT): Kevin Bacon drops by to direct his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, in tonight’s episode of “The Closer.” It has the entire squad shifting into overdrive to track down the scumbag who shot Sanchez’s brother. “Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House” (9 p.m., HBO): Presidents come and go, but journalist Helen Thomas — who covered nine of them during her career of more than a half-century — will forever be known as the First Lady of the Press. Since her days reporting on President Kennedy, it was Thomas who often asked the first question at White House press conferences, then concluded each session with, “Thank you, Mr. President.” A documentary portrait, “Thank You, Mr. President: Helen Thomas at the White House” tells her story, with her hearty participation as, now in her 80s, she reflects on her illustrious career, and the mission she shared with the rest of the White House press corps. “Presidents deserve to be questioned, perhaps irreverently, to bring them down to size,” declares Thomas, who began as one of just a handful of women correspondents. The film is directed by Rory Kennedy. “Into the Unknown” (10 p.m., Discovery): Josh Bernstein doesn’t know if there was really a great flood around the time of Genesis or a chap named Noah who built an ark. But Bernstein isn’t the sort to just sit around and wonder. He plunges into that rich mystery, and others, to try to find answers on his new Discovery Channel series, “Into the Unknown.” An explorer, writer and wilderness educator, Bernstein devotes an episode to chasing the rumor that life might have started not on Earth, but Mars. He tries to track down a reason for the sudden disappearance five centuries ago of the fierce Chachapoya tribe in northern Peru. And on the premiere (tonight at 10 p.m.), he revisits the Roman Empire to investigate gladiators. Were they slaves? Or celebrities? “The Hills Rejoice” (10 p.m., MTV): You no longer have to settle for reading about Lauren Conrad and her fellow drama queens in the gossip rags. MTV’s (virtual) reality hit is back for its fourth season, and life is good again ... if you’re into this sort of thing. And it seems that things in sunny L.A. are about to get more complicated over the next 20 new episodes. Producers are promising that friendships, relationships and loyalties are tested “like never before” and that Lauren, Audrina, Heidi and Whitney are forced to make huge decisions that will set the course for the rest of their lives. Oh, so silly and vapid ... and oh, so totally addictive.