You know how the late Ann Landers used to recommend that people who couldn't afford therapy should consider seeking out the clergy?

Now there's an alternative: "reality" television.

For the second time this week, members of the Television Critics Association are being  told -- by couples who opened their homes and marriages to video crews -- that it's the equivalent of couples therapy.

On Tuesday, it was the men and women who'll be appearing on a Fox Reality Channel show, "Househusbands of Hollywood," who were arguing that the genre forces couples to confront their differences in a healthy way, and today, it's newlyweds Bill and Giuliana Rancic, who are putting their commuter marriage on the line in the Style Network's "Bill and Guiliana."

Having done the commuter thing as a newlywed eons ago -- and off camera -- I expressed my usual concern, the history of marriages recorded on television being a rocky one.

No need to go all the way back to the 1970s, when the Loud family fractured on camera in PBS' "An American Family."

Guiliana, whose work on E! includes updates on Jon and Kate Gosselin, almost certainly knows the sad outcome of  MTV's "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica" -- or "Meet the Barkers," with the now divorced Travis Barker and Shanna Moakler. (I seem to remember the latter couple being asked the very same questions, and offering the same assurances, at this very event.)

But like the men and women on "Househusbands," Guiliana's convinced she and Bill are different.

And that the lessons she's learned from watching herself on the show -- including the fact that she can be annoying -- can only help their marriage.

These two won't be landing on the cover of People, promises their boss, Comcast Entertainment Networks honcho Ted Harbert.

I wish  them all the luck in the world, but since these press conferences are transcribed -- and archived -- if they ever do break up, there'll be plenty sadly ironic quotes for People to work with if things don't work out.

On the other hand, if the worst happens, it won't necessarily be bad news for Harbert's empire, whose E! fall lineup includes "The Lamas Life," whose cast includes Lorenzo ("Falcon Crest") Lamas, his daughter, Shayne ("The Bachelor"), Lorenzo's ex-wife and their other kids, son A.J. and daughter Dakota.

A.J. and Lorenzo acknowledge an estrangement, but insist the show's brought them together, at least in the sense that they've seen more of each other in the past two weeks than they have in four years.

"There's only one way to get a family back together, and that's television," says producer Mike Fleiss.

A few minutes later, Shayne Lamas gets pretty emotional, talking about those who've asked -- including us -- if she's worried that the show will tear her family apart.

After recounting just how bad things have been with the Lamases -- her father's trying to avoid details, but she says he and A.J. haven't spoken in six years -- she says her answer is, "Well, no, because we were already pretty apart."