In our slightly cynical hearts, we always sensed Toccara Jones wouldn't be named America's Next Top Model (Tuesdays, 9 pm/ET on UPN). Still, the zaftig catwalker's fans held out hope until Tyra Banks and the judges suddenly booted her last week. Inevitably, we heard cries of "She was robbed!" Miss Jones agrees, but the 22-year-old Ohioan — who recently relocated to New York to be closer to industry action — hasn't given up.

As Thanksgiving approaches, so do those warm, fuzzy holiday TV-movies. This year, NBC gives us former Frasier star Kelsey Grammer as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (Nov. 28 at 9 pm/ET, in case you're TiVoing whilst out gift shopping). This musical version of Charles Dickens' classic tale costars Seinfeld's Jason Alexander, Ally McBeal's Jane Krakowksi and ex-Neutrogena hawker Jennifer Love Hewitt. Now there's a helluva cast!

Grammer, who's a hammy delight in Carol, says it was heartening to play ol' Scrooge, "a man redeemed by love." Here's how he sums up his miser-makes-good gig: "In playing Scrooge," the 49-year-old actor says, "I discovered something extraordinary. That Tiny Tim character represents all the hopes of childhood. It was Scrooge's childhood that was robbed from him. I think it is our childhoods for which we mourn as we grow older — the dreams that didn't pay off or come true.

"When he sees the little boy being buried in a vision, all that is in him that has been killed — through choices of greed and avarice — finally cries out in him, and it redeems him."

Of course, some younger viewers may miss these emotional nuances, but Grammer thinks there's something for everyone in his Carol. "My 3-year-old daughter Mason has seen the rough cut of it," he chuckles. "The other day, she turned to me in her little car seat and said, 'Daddy Christmas mean.' I said, 'What are you talkin' about, mean?' She said, 'Humbug.' So it has had its impact already!"

Of all the takes on Christmas Carol throughout the years, Grammer loves 1962's Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol the best. However, he insists the half-blind cartoon curmudgeon did not inform his performance. "[Squinting my eyes in this musical] was not an homage to Mr. Magoo," he cracks. "It was an active attempt to show how shortsighted he is. This guy has become so myopic, and so broken and bent. If you notice, Scrooge is finally able to stand erect at the end of the production. He lost his way, and he's truly reborn from the feet up as he rediscovers his ability to love."

You'd think an actress who's appeared in nine movies over the past four years would be used to seeing herself on the big screen. But Laura Linney admits she still has difficulty watching any film she appears in. "I've gotten better at it over time," confesses the Oscar-nominated actress. "I'll watch a movie once or sometimes twice if I can bear it. The thing is, you're dying to see the movie to see what everyone else has done and then this thing shows up that's you, and you want to throw yourself off a bridge.

"It's a very unnatural thing to watch yourself on screen," she continues. "You check yourself out in the mirror, but you don't watch yourself in action for two hours at a time. To hear your voice outside of your own head is very [strange]. Thankfully, I'm better at it, but there are still a million things I would rather do than watch myself."

In the just-released Kinsey, Linney plays Clara, the little-known wife of controversial sex scientist Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson). Getting into that character was tough. "There wasn't a lot of information about Clara," says Linney. "There were photographs I was able to look at and film footage of her walking. The most helpful thing was an audiotape where she was being interviewed. That was what finally gave me a sense of her wit and her thought process."

Writer/director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) also asked her to plump up her normally svelte figure for the part. "He didn't want a contemporary body," Linney recalls. "I gained around 22 pounds for the film. It was easy to gain that weight — losing it was more difficult."

Her costar had it a little easier. "I intended to put on weight because Kinsey was a jowly man," says Neeson. "But I've found that when I put on weight, I just look stronger. So I did the opposite; I dropped a few pounds to appear meeker."

Linney's weight challenges didn't end with Kinsey. Immediately after wrapping production, she went straight into shooting P.S., in which she plays a lonely divorcée who has a fling with a younger man (Topher Grace). "I had only two days off between movies and, of course, they wanted me to be sleek and sexy for P.S.," she laughs. "I said 'Folks, there's only so much I can do!' I tried to lose as much as I could responsibly; I went on a food plan called Five Squares, which is a food delivery service. I started that about two-thirds of the way into Kinsey, when the fat suits went on top of the weight I had gained. I was able to lose about half the weight by the time P.S. started."

Next up for Linney is a small indie film called The Squid and the Whale with Jeff Daniels. She's also about to start shooting an untitled courtroom drama that will be out next year. "It's based on a true story about a girl who went through several exorcisms and then died, and her priest is on trial. I'm in it along with Tom Wilkinson and Campbell Scott."