Next week: the Amazing bickering Race ends, Carrie Underwood gets two festive Fox hours

And suddenly, it’s the first week of the last month of the decade. Here’s what you may have missed the past two weeks, and what not to miss next week:

The Past

• Thanksgiving week and the first week in December have been dominated by two reality-related stories: The fall-out over Adam Lambert’s AMA kissing and crotching was overshadowed only by White House party crashers. Oh, and there’s the reality TV connection to the Tiger Woods story. Adam may be unofficially blacklisted from ABC, but he sold a lot more records than winner Kris Allen did, and Kris is in last place for first-week sales among all winners. Susan Boyle, however, crushed them both, and incredibly did so without shoving anyone’s face into her crotch.

The Forward

• Saturday, Dec. 5 DJ AM’s intervention reality show Gone Too Far ends its season [MTV, 10 p.m.] on Saturday night, where it was dumped after getting low ratings.
• Sunday, Dec. 6
  The Amazing Race 15 comes to an end [CBS, 8 p.m.], and that bohring coupyle Meghan and Cheyne will probably win, just because it seems like the boring young straight couples tend to win. I’m pulling for Brian and Ericka to win and Sam and Dan to lose their voices so they can’t bicker as they race for the finish line. Also tonight, Holly Madison moves to Las Vegas, stars in Peepshow, and gets her own TV special about it: Holly’s World [E!, 11 p.m.], which airs after the season finale of Holly-less Girls Next Door [E!, 10 p.m.].
• Monday, Dec. 7
  Fox gives American Idol winner and all-around superstar its entire two hours of prime-time tonight for her own holiday special, creatively titled “Carrie Underwood: An-All Star Holiday Special.” [Fox, 8 p.m.] Also tonight, Million Dollar Listing ends, and I can’t believe they burned off Madison’s surprising (to him) coming out in the penultimate episode. What could possibly happen tonight, besides, you know, some fake Chad and Josh conflict? I love this show.
• Tuesday, Dec. 8
  The Biggest Loser [NBC, 8 p.m.] ends its eighth season with a two-hour finale, starting with the revealtion of who will make it to the final three based on America’s vote. And how long will it take Allison Sweeney to reveal that with. her. slow. delivery. that. drives. me. insane. Meanwhile, MTV tries to balance out its Jersey Shore-style programming with another “aspirational”-type show: Teen Mom [MTV, 10 p.m.], which is a follow-up to/spin-off of 16 and Pregnant, showing us what happened after the pregnant teenagers squeezed out their babies.
• Wednesday, Dec. 9
  Top Chef Las Vegas [Bravo, 10 p.m.] ends its season as one of the Voltaggio brothers or the bearded man will have Padma stare at them and declare them the winner. The Ruins [MTV, 10 p.m.] also ends tonight, if you don’t count the reunion next week, and the “shit they should have shown” special two weeks later, and the fact that I don’t care about the Challenges any more. Finally, I don’t think the world needs another cop reality show, but I like the concept behind Campus PD [G4, 11 p.m.], which follows college campus cops as they deal with drunk students and, well, drunk students.

Shambo’s headless chicken nightmares fail to predict blindside; John says pie not a factor

Any of the simple-minded people who think Survivor is fake and populated with actors need only watch last night’s Tribal Council, when the camera focused on John’s face as he realized he was about to be voted out. His confident face sank and transformed until it looked like it belonged to a wounded child, genuine shock that could only be mimicked by the best actors, not an aerospace engineer who swam a race in jeans.

That he was surprised might be the most surprising part, because John flipped to save his own ass last episode, and that decision and its aftermath led to Probst snuffing his torch. John really screwed up both by betraying his tribe and acting arrogantly about that and by making a deal and sort of threatening the guy who he’d helped blindside someone else. After buying a clue to the hidden immunity idol’s location during the reward challenge auction, John confronted Russell and prompted Russell to confess having found it. Russell told us, “It was my mistake, but sorry, John, you’ve gotta go home for it.”

Galu minus Shambo (was there ever a Galu plus Shambo?) gladly went along with the plan to get rid of John instead of Dave, because they saw John as a loose cannon free agent. However, all of this has the potential to backfire on Russell because as Jaison smartly pointed out, Foa Foa just did to Shambo what Galu did to her: took her vote for granted. Shambo’s clairvoyant dreams from god told her Dave Ball was going home, because she clashed with him about how to cook the chicken that she’d told “I’ll talk to you in heaven when I go to heaven, okay?” just before her tribemates cut its head off. Totally amazing.

Shambo’s been acting kind of insane, and the editors are having as much fun with her as they did with Coach last season. Last night’s episode had a night vision sequence—featuring frighteningly edited shots of a crab, a chicken, and Shambo jerking in her sleep as if she was in a Japanese horror film—that was the weirdest and freakiest thing the show has ever done.

And that was just one part of a very full, very satisfying episode. The auction reward challenge included a soft core porn shower for Natalie, an advantage for the immunity challenge that Jaison bought and used so effectively that he won immunity, and John refusing to trade a piece of pie for a full pie that he’d have to give away. In Jeff Probst’s EW piece (which has not miraculously transformed int a blog despite Entertainment Weekly’s continual, stubborn insistence on using that label), Probst insists that “John could have used that pie to buy a lot of good will from a lot of people, and I absolutely believe had he done so he would still be in the game.”

There’s obviously footage we didn’t see—since all of Galu except Shambo voted against John—but in the moment they didn’t seem to be upset about his decision, and I don’t think they dumped him because of the pie. John feels the same way: When I talked to him a few minutes ago, he said, “I certainly disagree [with Probst]. There was a long dialouge with me and the other cast members when that whole thing happened.” He said that if he thought “it contributed 1/10th of a percent to my going home,” he would have taken the offer for the full pie. But John said that the pie “was the very last” auction item, and by that time “everyone except Jaison had something to eat.” That means that those people who we didn’t see bid at all, like Brett and Russell, actually won items that were edited out.

As to “the hit that was executed on me,” as John called it, he discussed it with his mix of obvious intelligence and intelligence-defeating cockiness. He’s clearly given everything a lot of thought, and admits mistakes and alternative options, but also seems overly confident about what he did do, even if it led to his downfall in the game.

“I think there were several things that could have gone differently, and had they gone differently, I’d still be in the game,” he said. For example, he said that if Dave, Monica, or Brett had talked to him, he could have proposed “a plan that served them better than voting me off,” but “people don’t always do what serves them best,” John said.

I pointed out that he didn’t do much to convince them he was trustworthy, and he essentially defended his flipping last week. “If you had executed more effectively on your plan, Natalie would have gone home, but guess what? You didn’t, and I’m not obliged to take a rock,” John said, adding that he “could have worked harder with Monica,” because “we were both gunning for each other, let’s take a step back and reassess the situation we’re in.”

While he worked with Russell, who he’d helped to vote out one of his own the previous week, John said, “I certainly didn’t trust Russell. Sometimes you have to work with people.” As to their conversation about the idol, John said, “sometimes the conversations happen really, really quickly” and “it’s not like a phone interview for a new job where you have a list of things to talk about, and be prepared for it. In hindsight, you’re like, ‘I shouldn’t have said this, I shouldn’t have said that, and that’s maybe one of them.”

Finally, I asked him about one of the most baffling things I’ve seen: his decision to swim in jeans in the opening challenge. He laughed and said it was “clearly not the right thing,” and blames the way the whole situation is “very chaotic.” Ultimately, he said that while “there are lots of people on that island that I could have beat with jeans on” (there’s that cockiness), he said he was beaten because “Jaison is a hell of a swimmer,” and it was “certainly the wrong play to swim in jeans; I’m an idiot.”

Tool Academy’s Aida says Jaimee Grubbs talked about Tiger Woods affair on camera

Jaimee Grubbs discussed her affair with Tiger Woods on camera during production of VH1’s Tool Academy last year, according to one of her fellow cast members. Yes, we’ve reached the point in our culture where virtually every news story has a reality TV connection.

“We all knew about Jaimee’s affair with Tiger Woods because she told us,” Aida Menaska told Radar. As to Jaimee talking about it to the cameras, Aida speculated, “I guess they cut it out because VH1 didn’t want to cause problems for Tiger Woods and his wife.”

Jaimee Grubbs appeared briefly on the show’s first season, but now is much more famous because she had an affair with Tiger Woods and revealed Tiger’s voicemail and text messages to her. (Because she’s apparently out of interesting anecdotes, she most recently told Us Weekly that Tiger is insecure about his calves.)

Because the media likes to turn on people who turn on other people, her ex-boyfriend talked about her failed attempt to get in Playboy to Radar, while Entertainment Tonight has a report about Jaimee’s criminal history: she “pleaded guilty to misdemeanor grand theft in 2004 related to a shoplifting incident at a San Diego Nordstrom department store. Grubbs pleaded guilty to stealing over $400 worth of merchandise,” and separately, went to court because she “failed to pay a credit card balance of $868.07.”

Mark Burnett Productions takes over HGTV’s Design Star for season five

Survivor and Apprentice executive producer and creator Mark Burnett’s company will produce the fifth season of HGTV’s Design Star, which is now casting.

This the second producer change a month for a 495 Productions-produced show. The company previously produced Design Star and also produced Oxygen’s Dance Your Ass Off’s first season, but was replaced by Magical Elves for the second season of its weight-loss dance competition.

HGTV executive Freddy James said in a press release that Mark Burnett Productions “is extremely creative and talented — masters at crafting entertaining reality programming. We expect that they will infuse HGTV Design Star with fresh perspectives and innovative ideas that will serve as a blueprint for a successful fifth season.”

In his press release quote, Burnett said, “We look forward to rolling up our sleeves and making HGTV Design Star even bigger, better, and more exciting than it has been in seasons past.”

While the show has been decent, it doesn’t quite have the life or energy that Food Network’s Next Food Network Star does. (The series made changes for its fourth season, but didn’t solve some of its biggest problems, like the lame editing of the judges’ deliberations.) Burnett-produced series may be somewhat hit or miss, especially on cable, but his team will only improve the show, I’m sure.

Steven Seagal Lawman, Hoarders set debut ratings records for A&E; time for a crossover?

Last night, A&E debuted Steven Seagal Lawman—the law is so much a part of who he is, his title doesn’t even need a colon—and 3.5 million viewers watched, making it “the most-watched original series launch in the network’s history among all key demos,” A&E said in a press release.

The first two half-hour episodes, with all of their apparently unintentional over-the-top ridiculousness and humor from the lawman himself are now both online (one, two).

A&E amusingly points out in its press release that its Monday debut of Hoarders’ second season “temporarily became the network’s best ever season opener for any original A&E series among adults 18-49 and 25-54.” I think it’s time for a crossover episode where Steven invades a messy house and shows the hoarder how to really clean up.

Top Chef has its final three after the inevitable final four start the real competition

After taking yet another hiatus last week, Top Chef 6 narrowed the competition to its final three contestants last night. The tragic part is that the real competition just seemed to start.

The final four—Kevin Gillespie, Bryan Voltaggio, Michael Voltaggio, and Jennifer Carroll—have been the inevitable final four since the beginning. The whole penultimate episode, which was set in Napa Valley and featured a pregnant yet still irritable Padma Lakshmi, kept pointing that out. Bryan said that before now, “it’s been very easy” to decide who goes home, and his brother said, “there’s been enough shite on the table to justify who belongs there.”

Jennifer’s mid-season flame-out threw off the inevitability of her making to the finals, but she recovered. Alas, not for long: She was sent home, leaving an all-male and two-third Voltaggio final three, and leaving me to join Team Kevin. The Voltaggios are obviously talented, but I kind of can’t stand them, particularly Michael and his cockiness. I guess there’s a reason they’re vying for Top Chef and not “America’s favorite chef” on So You Think You Can Cook.

Byron Velvick, Mary Delgado break up, defying Chris Harrison, who said they’d marry this year

Bachelor 6 couple Byron Velvick and Mary Delgado managed to survive two arrests, including one for domestic violence two years ago, but have now broken up. Us Weekly reports that Byron confirmed they are no longer together, but offers no other information.

A few months ago, Chris Harrison told me that there’d be three Bachelor weddings this year, and that “Byron and Mary set a date” and were “getting married this year.”

Hills, The City renewed; Kristin and Justin Bobby “not necessarily” dating, he says

The Hills concluded its fifth—and final?—season Tuesday night with new pro/antagonist Kristin Cavallari and Justin Bobby deciding to date. Of course, they’re not actually in a relationship.

Despite appearing as a couple during the awkward after show, Justin Bobby told the L.A. Times that they are “Not necessarily. When we met, it was just kind of nice, and personally for me to be on the show and conversate with somebody I haven’t yet on the show. We work and do our scenes and see each other and that’s that.”

He also says he never was in a relationship with Audrina Patridge. “Realistically, no. I’ve only had two loves of my life and then there’s been a whole dating montage,” he said.

Kristin, doing her best to make her fake life seem real (“I don’t know what scene you’re talking about”) told the paper, “Just because we kissed doesn’t mean we were intimate.” However, she was demure about the rest, only referring to her life in terms of the show. “In the episode we decided we’re gonna give it a try, and we’re hanging out and talking. You’re going to have to wait and see what happens on the next season,” she said.

Yes, next season, dammit. Despite the fact that ratings were way down without Lauren, the fake reality show just won’t die, and was renewed, along with its sibling series, The City.