Now Courtney And Doug Will Stay Together Forever

From the moment we all learned that obscure character actor Doug Hutchison, on the eve of his fifty-first birthday, had married the suspiciously mature "sixteen-year-old" Courtney Stodden, it seemed certain that some reality show producer or other would eventually put them on a reality show. That their first outing would be on VH1's Couples Therapy seemed, initially, like a letdown: for one thing, they would just be part of an ensemble of struggling couples; for another, how could a love as pure and true as Doug and Courtney's admit impediment?! But we needn't have worried, because Courtney and Doug were the undisputed stars of the show, and they resisted all challenges to their shared conception of their relationship. Three weeks of TV therapy later, Doug and Courtney haven't learned a thing or changed a thing.

I almost feel bad for the other couples, because clearly all of them are made up of at least one fame whore. JoJo and Too Short (who brought a wife and a girlfriend, respectively) are both musical artists. Alex and Simon are alumni of The Real Housewives Of New York City. Shayne is a former "winner" of The Bachelor, not that she married the dude from that show; she came to Couples Therapy with her husband Nik, a "celebrity blogger" who founded TheDirty.com. If any of them had been serious about fixing their relationships, they would have sought couples' counselling in private, so when I say that they obviously all agreed to come on Couples Therapy because they wanted attention and didn't care if it was good or bad, I'm not saying anything you didn't already know.

So imagine all these other goons' dismay when they got to the house and realized they'd be sharing the experience with Courtney and Doug! They could pretty much abandon all hope of competing for air time. That's not to say they didn't try. Tiny challenged JoJo to seek help for his alcoholism (it didn't stick, and they broke up anyway). Nik wrapped up the season by renewing his vows to Shayne in what was presented as a proper wedding (as opposed to their impulsive quickie in Las Vegas), as though, when she imagined her big day back when she was a little girl, she pictured housekeepers in shorts, or Alex McCord, among her guests. Alex wiped out spectacularly on the pool deck.

But it was all for naught. Courtney and Doug were so mesmerizing that it was barely worth paying attention to anyone else on the show. And that's not just my opinion as a viewer: the show's producers were addicted to Doug and Courtney too. When therapist Dr. Jenn justifiably responded to Courtney's refusal to tone down her wardrobe by kicking her (and Doug) out of the therapy house, the remaining couples spent the next episode talking about virtually nothing but Doug and Courtney, and whether their fellow therapy seekers had bullied them. Doug and Courtney didn't even have to be present to be the center of attention.

Dr. Jenn did try to gin up interest in the other couples, as when she had Alex tell the story of her father's death on an oil field, and even brought Alex's mother to the house to talk about it. But was it possible to give a tiny rat's ass about anyone else's mom after Courtney's mother Krista made her inaugural appearance and all but confessed her love for her son-in-law? No. No, it was not.

Ostensibly, Courtney and Doug came to the house because he's too jealous of the attention she compulsively seeks, from strangers, with her ridiculously sexy wardrobe. That problem was solved temporarily: Courtney finally agreed to wear appropriate clothing while in therapy, presumably because she couldn't stand being off the show for even the 75% of one episode that her expulsion lasted. But if you thought her dress sense was altered forever out of respect for her husband, think again. For Doug's part, the pain he felt at being disowned by his family for marrying a child might have been solved; in last night's season finale, he called his mother, who tentatively agreed to a meeting with him and Courtney. Did that happen? Who's to say? Who really cares? Frankly, Doug's family has a point. He's probably always been a creep and was just lucky they put up with his ass for as long as they did.

If Shayne and Nik really did heal their relationship over the past ten episodes, great. But that's just a bonus. The real reason for this season of Couples Therapy obviously wasn't the couples' therapy: it was so that Courtney and Doug could join VH1's stable of Celebreality stars. Now audiences know who they are, and will follow them to a spinoff -- maybe with Courtney's mom! And when that show comes along, we'll know that the hematoma Alex probably got when she fell on that thigh was in the service of a higher purpose.