(S19E11) Oh my. Evil Russell from Survivor looks like some sort of deranged Buddha gone bad in this screen capture from tonight's episode. Tonight, like every Thanksgiving episode, was the clips show boasting previously unseen footage. It's not surprising that they do this each year. With the format of the show, they can't run a real repeat. And, if they were to air a new episode on the holiday, many folks would end up missing it. I'm usually disappointed with the footage shown, but tonight we did have a few surprises and interesting bits -- nothing earth-shattering, mind you.

(S11E29) The Big Brother 11 finale will be a two-hour extravaganza on Tuesday evening. It's going to be similar to the Survivor finales with all of the houseguests, a big reunion, and love and joy abounding. Well, Chima should be missing. I'm not so sure on the love and joy either. Perhaps it will be fisticuffs and brouhahas. Hey, if Natalie wins it all, I can see the audience going into uproar mode. It will be live and should be interesting. But we had to get through the latest episode first.

(S18E06) They do this to us every season on Survivor -- the roughly mid-season clips show. Now, I'm not sure of the wisdom behind the whole thing. Perhaps it's to secure the jobs of the show's graphic artists so they can make new flashing "unseen before" logos. After all, in these tough economic times, those graphic artists need all the work they can get since their other main contribution is the seasonal logo. But that's actually not the reason they had the clips show this season. It was obviously to reinforce my opinion that Coach is a loon.

We're almost there. The finale is right around the corner on Tuesday. But before we crown the winner of Big Brother 10, we have to sit through a clips show with (booming announcer voice) NEVER BEFORE SEEN FOOTAGE. You know just from how CBS touted this episode that the "never before seen footage" would be nothing special.

After the jump, let's talk about what happened last night ... or what didn't happen.