CBS's daytime drama Guiding Light celebrated its 71st year on the air on January 25. First, on radio, then and now on television, this grand old soap opera has never stopped telling its stories, making broadcast history. Production goes on, but starting February 29, 2008, viewers will be seeing Guiding Light in a brand new light. Led by innovative Executive Producer Ellen Wheeler, Guiding Light it busting out of the studio to starting filming in a more realistic, cinema verite style. "Soap operas have been shot, by and large, the same way since the 1950's, the same way I Love Lucy was shot - with pedestal cameras, in just a few interior sets," said Ms. Wheeler recently. According to her, the "[it's] old-fashioned, and it isn't working anymore."

I have been watching Guiding Light for 26 years.

Now, I know that I'm a guy, but you really have to blame my mother for all this. When I was around 14 or 15, I would come home from school and want to watch television. My mom would be watching her "stories," which were All My Children, One Life To Live, and Guiding Light (it used to be on in the afternoon). She wouldn't let me watch anything, so I was stuck watching Guiding Light when I got out of school...and I became hooked. I became addicted to the show, and watched it all for years, through the Philip/Beth/Rick/Mindy saga, the devious schemes of Alan Spaulding and Roger Thorpe, that bizarre story with the infected mouse that killed a bunch of characters off, Quint and Nola, Ross and Josh turning from bad to heroes, and the more recent storylines like that whole Richard and Jeffrey island kingdom stuff and Harley and Gus and Jonathan.