At 36" this is close to the limit for a standard (CRT based) TV, so make sure you have adequate space to handle the depth of the TV as well as someone to help lift the set.
It is fairly difficult at present to find HDTV sets in this size for under $ 1,000. The one posted by BCN_246 seems fairly reaonsable and offers both HDTV and line-doubling to reduce the 'interlaced' effect on standard definition TV.
With a large TV size (>28") the main features to look out for is double frequency scanning (100Hz for PAL, 120Hz for NTSC) as the refresh 'flicker' gets clearly noticeable with large sets and can cause a headache with some people. Noise reduction is also useful since artefacts and 'interlacing' effect becomes more annoying with large sets.
Finally, if you are going for a HDTV set, ensure it supports either component input or HDCP-DVI. The HDCP support will allow the set to display flag-controlled digital content. Unfortunately, the FCC requires all broadcasts to be flag-controlled (restricted with anti-copy measures) by July 2005
, which means a standard DVI connection would not work with protected digital broadcasts.