['Big Brother 12' - 'Never Seen Before Footage Clips']

Yes, it's that time in the 'Big Brother' season. You know, the final hamsters are trapped in the house, possibly pulling a Donner Party due to boredom, and we get treated to the old walk down Memory Lane. Ah, but we've been promised "never seen before footage"!

How exciting is that? Whatever do they have in store for us? Perhaps we'll see more of the jury house. Maybe they'll show us cat fights we've never seen before! Out of the hundreds of hours of filming the captive hamsters, they have to have lots of fresh goodies on the cutting room floor.

Or not.

Oh, why do they do this to us? It's all so phony and very little we haven't seen before, too. The remaining three doofus dudes were treated to a champagne and lobster feast, then shuffled from room to room to reminisce and perhaps pine a bit for the days when the house actually had some action. It was obvious that they were prompted for each memory. I'd say scripted, but it's unlikely any of them would be able to remember any lines.

Almost all of the clips shown were things we've already seen -- Brenchel issues, Rachel done gone crazy, the Ragan and Britney vs. Brendon "neanderthal" battle, the Kristine/Rachel cat fight ... I could go on and on. I don't believe the Kristine eating the spider footage ever made the show, but I saw that on the feeds. And, yes -- there was expanded Zingbot bad joke footage. Sorry, I found the Zingbot rather sophomoric and annoying the first time around. I didn't need to watch it again.

Of the replayed footage, it was fun to watch Ragan mimic Rachel in their cat fight. Also, the expanded bit on mocking Rachel's laugh with everyone doing impressions in the diary room made me smile. But I don't know ... she might consider it flattery, you know. No, Rachel: They're not laughing with you, they're laughing at you. That's not such a good thing.

Another actual "unseen footage" bit was the "that's what she said" bit. They could have left it out of the show. On the live feeds, it was as annoying as the constant "it is what it is" or Enzo's "yo" in every sentence. At least they picked up on the only funny thing about the line -- the fact that Lane didn't understand the joke. Then again, there's a lot Lane doesn't understand. What they didn't show is how crude and vulgar Ragan was with the line.

It seems to me that they could do something better with the finale stretch. First off, it's too long. While the live jury questioning is a great idea for the finale show, there's just too much wasted time going on right now. One of my blog readers came up with the idea that, if production feels they need to have this stretch, the final three should do something worthwhile -- care packages for soldiers, make something for children in hospitals or some other worthy cause.

Another idea would be to either shorten the season with a special Sunday finale, or, switch up the double eviction to just before the final three. But this is pitiful, just as it has been every season, whether it's two or three hamsters stuck in the house with no game, no competitions, no nothing going on. While it's worse for live feed viewers, the gap is rough on the show fans as well. By the time the finale comes around, some of the interest is gone. Fix that, CBS.

Have you any ideas for improving interest in this final stretch of the show? Maybe throw live badgers in there with them? Or, at the very least, maybe a show with jury house clips might sustain our interest instead of this yearly "we've already seen most of this unseen footage" episode. What do you think?

The 'Big Brother 12' two-hour season finale airs Weds. Sept. 15, 9PM ET on CBS.