The holidays dealt a crushing blow to the network schedules last week, leaving only five hours of new scripted programming on all five broadcast networks combined. Over on cable, it was season finale time for ‘American Horror Story’, ‘The League’, ‘Dexter’, and ‘Homeland’.

It wouldn’t be Christmas around the CliqueClack offices without our parody carols. Here’s my humble submission for 2011.

The last release of the year includes ‘Archer,’ ‘The Borgias,’ ‘Shameless,’ ‘Jersey Shore,’ ’60 Minutes,’ ‘Todd Margaret,’ ‘Himawari,’ ‘Eden of the East,’ ‘Slayers,’ ‘D. Gray-man,’ ‘Heroic Age,’ ‘Dino Dan,’ ‘Peanuts,’ ‘Looney Tunes,’ and ‘Dora.’

My pony, Josh Krajcik, finished a respectable second on this first season of ‘The X Factor’ on Fox. I knew he probably would. Still, a girl can hope, can’t she?

The final three gave it their all (or at least what they could) in pursuit of winning the five million dollar prize on the finals of The X Factor tonight. So, who do you think won? Only the votes will tell us now. And goodness knows the results may not be what’s expected.

Is the current television season halfway through, or does it still have halfway to go? That’s my attempt at applying the glass half full/half empty concept to a television season. But with most shows on hiatus, I figured this was a good time to look back at the half-season that was.

This week on Top Chef: Texas, social media and culinary teachers take center stage as the chefs are slowly disappearing.