Grab a snack and get comfortable, it’s time for the Couchies

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If Hollywood learned anything during the writers strike — other than that if they’re denied new episodes long enough, some viewers will even seek out "The Moment of Truth" — it’s how to throw an awards show.

With no celebrities willing to cross the picket lines, the Golden Globes ceremony was short and sweet. No lame banter, no jokes about the accountants, no carefully orchestrated wackiness involving Jack Nicholson.

The whole thing was done in half an hour.

Which brings us to the second annual Couchies, the end-of-the-season awards that honor the best and worst in TV. In keeping with the spirit of the Globes, this year’s big musical number has been scrapped. The world will just have to wait to hear Jamie Lynn Spears’ rendition of "Papa Don’t Preach."

And the Couchies go to:

Best use of Southern Nevada: MTV’s Video Music Awards

Sure, the performance suites must have been better in person. And, yeah, the show pretty much spelled the end of Britney’s live career. But MTV turned the Palms into the biggest party the city had seen in ages. For a few minutes, I even kind of enjoyed Fall Out Boy.

Worst use of Southern Nevada: "Rock of Love," "Viva Laughlin" (tie)

It takes a special kind of catastrophe to rival "Rock of Love’s" two skanktastic trips to Vegas, where the contestants fought — and drank and puked — for Bret Michaels’ affection. The two-episodes-and-done "Viva Laughlin" — the musical murder mystery that dropped a college, a police department and more McMansions than you ever could hope to foreclose on into the town of 8,000 people — was just that catastrophe.

Most intelligent reality moment: "Farmer Wants a Wife"

Looking for intelligence on a reality show is like looking for sensitivity on TMZ. But at a time when dating-show contestants swear they’ve fallen in love after a couple of days, a personal assistant named Christa delivered this moment of clarity: "Just because you look at him and he’s pretty, and he looks at you and you’re pretty, that’s not a connection."

Least intelligent reality moment: "Sunset Tan"

Long before the salon was airbrushing locals at Palms Place, it was terrifying a little girl on E!. A mother brought her daughter, who looked to be all of 8 years old, to get spray-tanned for her school picture. Several tears and $1,200 later, the tyke — who was promised she’d look like Lindsay Lohan, back when that was considered to be a good thing — more closely resembled an Oompa-Loompa.

Best news: "American Idol" ratings

Viewership for the juggernaut dropped 7 percent overall, and the show’s young fans are disappearing faster than Paula Abdul’s comeback single. At this rate, "Idol" will be just another show in, oh, roughly another decade.

Most disturbing realization: "How I Met Your Mother"

I haven’t missed an episode, but it still took more than two seasons to grasp that at its heart, the comedy is just a middle-age guy telling his teenage son and daughter about every time he and his friends got — or even almost got — lucky.

Most in need of more characters: "Gossip Girl"

Once Dan and Serena got together, his dad was on the verge of hooking up with her mom, and Dan’s sister and Serena’s brother were sniffing around each other. Where’s Jerry Springer when you need him?

Best reason to wake up: Mike Doria

The KVVU-TV, Channel 5 morning reporter, for whom "a.m." seems to stand for "awfully moody," has been known to insult the anchors, his interview subjects, even passing motorists. Not only do Doria’s antics make for fascinating live TV, they’re almost enough to make viewers forget about the station’s "bump key" fiasco.

Best escape from the ’80s: Steve Guttenberg

The "Police Academy" actor, obviously thrilled to be doing anything again, bounded about the "Dancing with the Stars" studio like a puppy on crystal meth. Tom Hanks at the end of "Cast Away" wasn’t any happier to be seen.

Best use of an animal carcass: "Man vs. Wild"

In demonstrating how to survive in the Sahara, host Bear Grylls cut into a dead camel, drank water straight from its stomach, swallowed some greenish liquid he squeezed from its partially digested food, unspooled some 200 feet of intestines, dragged them away and peed around the carcass to deter jackals, skinned the camel to make a blanket, then sought shelter by crawling inside its hollowed-out remains. High-def was made for this.

Saddest goodbye: Sue Johanson

Yes, "Las Vegas" was canceled. And the plug was pulled on "Jericho" … again. But in a surprise, Johanson, the 77-year-old who made Dr. Ruth look like a naïve schoolgirl, walked away from Oxygen’s "Sex Talk." Now where will young people go to be horrified by intercourse?

Christopher Lawrence’s Life on the Couch column appears on Mondays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.