No saucy swan songs for latest ‘Survivor’

While I was not really a fan of the show “Survivor: Palau,” (CBS, Thursdays) or the previous installments for that matter, I will admit that I sometimes tune in for the last 20 minutes of the finale episode to see if any of the contestants deliver a great farewell speech (similar to the snake and rat speech Susan gave during the first season’s final tribunal council).

Unfortunately, neither of the two remaining contestants gave a shocking or rudely impressive speech before departing the show. In fact, the only venom that I could detect was directed at Katie Gallagher, a 29-year-old advertising executive. Her former tribe members called her phony, pathetic and cruel. Ouch. That had to sting a little bit, but Katie did not seem too upset about it. She ended the show in second place and won $100K.

And it was no surprise that Tom Westman, a hunky firefighter from Williamsburg, N.Y., won the competition and became the reigning “Survivor” champion. He led his tribe to win every immunity challenge – an amazing feat. Congrats!

Moving on to another set of tearful goodbyes, the final episode of “The Bachelor” (CBS, Monday) appeared on Monday night and Charlie made his big decision: He picked Sarah B.

Wow! It is now official: I am completely unable to read men, and I am no longer qualified to provide relationship/dating counsel. I have made the wrong prediction about every matchmaking reality show this year and will keep my opinions to myself from now on.

Yeah right! Asking me to keep comments to myself is like telling a dog not to hump your leg – no matter how often you tell us to stop, we keep doing it.

Talking about a dog humping your leg is a completely inappropriate segue into talking about “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” (ABC, Sundays) … but I’m going to attempt it anyway. Sunday night’s episode was one of those wonderful tearjerkers that we all need to succumb to every now and then to show we’re human.

On this week’s episode, we met the Vitale family and learned that the dying wish of the wife and mother was that her husband and boys would return to their family home so that she would always know where to find them. I get choked up just thinking about it.

With help from the Vitales’ family and friends, the team at Extreme Makeover built the most amazing home and, while I’m not the most religious person, I’m sure the mom was looking down on them from heaven and smiling.

Which leads me to think of a few other things we can smile about: the next “Star Wars” saga, flip-flops, Three Cheese Stuffed Crust pizza from Pizza Hut, the inevitable end to Michael Jackson’s trial and the premiere of “Britney and Kevin: Chaotic” on UPN. (Smiling about the last item is completely up to you!)