A lot of Guiding Light fans are entranced by Otalia. That's not a butter substitute, it's the "Brangelina-ish" name that fans have given to Olivia and Natalia, the lesbian couple played by Crystal Chappell and Jessica Leccia. Fans won't be able to see that couple anymore, since Guiding Light will air its last episode ever on September 18. But the actresses have decided to keep the storyline alive on the web.

Though as I said above, kind of.

Imagine if, at the end of the 10-year run of Friends, Rachel ended up marrying Paul Rudd's character.

Doesn't make much sense, does it? But that's pretty much what's happening these days on Guiding Light, as it heads toward its last episode ever next month. The long romance of Reva Shayne and Josh Lewis - something that has been simmering off and on for over 25 years - has pretty much been over for a while.

But I thought that, since the show was ending, they'd start wrapping up classic storylines and actually get Reva and Josh together forever, to please fans of the show. It doesn't look like that's going to happen.

In fact, the opposite seems to be in the minds of the writers.

Game show fanatics will be pleased to learn that network game shows are returning to daytime television. Finally, people who take actual sick days will have something else to look forward to other than another mind-bending dose of NyQuil.

CBS has confirmed they are replacing the outgoing Guiding Light with a remake of the classic Let's Make a Deal.

The ex-Tiffany network has already shot a test pilot of the updated show with smiling crooner Wayne Brady in the host's chair. Brady hasn't officially won the job, but he's the front-running favorite. CBS executives are expected to make Brady's deal official later today at the Television Critics Association hoedown, unless, of course, he chooses to go for what's behind Door Number Two. Don't do it Wayne! It's just a lifetime supply of goat feed!

I've been a strong believer in bringing game shows back to daytime television. If soap operas continue to die, I certainly want to see game shows in there instead of another daytime talk show about nuns who cheat on their transvestite cousins.

When it was announced that Guiding Light wouldn't be coming back, it was rumored that game shows might be taking its place on the CBS lineup. Now it looks like that's true.

There will be no reprieve from the governor, no last minute miracle save. No, the end is approaching and Guiding Light will stop filming the week of August 3. The CBS soap opera will air its last show on September 18, 2009, and the 72-year-long run of America's most enduring daytime drama will officially wrap.

Fans have been hoping that somehow, someway Guiding Light would find a new home, but neither CBS nor Procter and Gamble have been able to save the show. Soapcentral.com has reported that efforts have been made to no avail. "We have not been able to secure an outlet to carry the show moving forward. We are extremely disappointed with this outcome, but we are confident we have exhausted every possible option," said TeleNext Media SVP Brian T. Cahill.

You may think the soap world has thrown in the the towel because 72-year-old Guiding Light has been canceled, but think again. Daytime TV is buzzing along as usual, and that includes The Bold & the Beautiful snagging three-time Emmy winner Rick Hearst from General Hospital.

Hearst, who was facing the prospect of a demotion to recurring status (as opposed to a contract player), will return to B&B as Whip Jones, a character he introduced and played for a brief stint in 2002.

If you're a fan of Guiding Light (now in its final six months on the air), you probably saw Bill and Lizzie running around Universal Studios in Florida today.

They were going on the various rides, eating giant chicken legs, squirting each other with big water guns, and shooting colored balls at each other, all the while holding hands and getting all kissy (I swear there was even a scene of them getting their pictures taken in one of those photo booths).

What is this big promotion that the show and CBS is doing for Universal Studios?

Now that Guiding Light is destined to become another sad memory of lonely housewives nationwide, CBS is hoping an old daytime tradition will pull them away from their housework.

And for those of you now engulfed in hate flame who've found the fuel to write some snide comment about my Mad Men-ish view of soap opera viewers and women, please calm the #*$& down. One, I realize this is not the 1950s and women don't all strive to stay at home barefoot and pregnant. And two, who the hell else watches soap operas? Only male hair salon stylists and hospital patients who don't have the physical ability or cognitive capacity to operate a bed remote.

I hope this means more game shows are on the way.

Yesterday - a day usually set aside for light-hearted pranks and various other yuk-yuks - will forever be remembered now as the day that CBS got rid of Guiding Light, the longest running drama on TV (it started on radio in 1937 and TV in 1952).

It's probably the starting gun for other networks to get rid of their soap operas. It's a dying genre, either gone forever or scattered here and there on the TV landscape. It's really sad. Fans can mourn the death of a long-running network show, but a big part of pop culture is dying too. I watched the show since the late '70s/early '80s, and while I drifted away a few years ago, I've been watching it again, so it's going to be weird that it's not on anymore. I'll be recording that last episode and grabbing the inevitable collectible issue of Soap Opera Digest.

So what will CBS do now that they'll have another hour on the schedule Monday through Friday? A look at some of their options after the jump.

Yesterday was a sad day for many TV fans. Guiding Light was cancelled after 72 years of continuous broadcasting (radio and TV). Even people I know who don't watch soaps, were upset by the end of this program.

That said, it's with some real glee that I tell you that AMC has picked up Breaking Bad for a third season. It's not just that the Vince Gilligan's show is one of the best dramas on television – it might be the best! – it's the fact that renewing the program for year number three restores my faith that idiosyncratic, unusual stories like Breaking Bad can find a place to thrive and survive on the tube.

The die was cast today. CBS canceled Guiding Light, the longest running TV program still on the air. The soap opera will cease broadcasting on Friday, September 18, 2009.

As I wrote the other day, the prospects looked grim for Guiding Light, and apparently my idea of letting the show continue until it reached its 75th anniversary (three years from now) was only popular with fans. I heard from many the past couple of days. They, like me, are sorry to see Guiding Light come to an end.

It looks the lighthouse may be switched off before the end of 2009. CBS is expected to determine whether or not to renew Guiding Light later this week. All things considered, I think the network is going to call it a day for the 72-year-old soap opera.

The ratings have been lagging and the way Guiding Light is situated around the country – being broadcast in different time slots instead of having a regular fixed time like the rest of the CBS soaps – it's not likely to ever challenge in the Nielsens.

It's been a little over a year since Guiding Light bolted from the confines of a New York studio to create a reality based production, a sort of cinema-verite style that brought to life a real New Jersey town to "play" Springfield. The results have been middling at best, but recently GL has lurched forward in a positive way and that can all be explained in two words/one name -- Grant Aleksander. The actor is back as Phillip Spaulding, one of the most important characters in the history of the show.

The last year of GL hasn't only been about the new production. Coinciding with all that physical change which has set more and more scenes outdoors and in "wild" set, the cast has been undergoing massive change. Top line veterans Ricky Paull Goldin, Nicole Forester and Beth Ehlers have all departed, and recently John Driscoll was tragically killed off.

Did you know that double Oscar winners Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro acted in soap operas? It's true. Many of today's biggest stars honed their craft by doing New York soaps like As the World Turns and Another World. Before she was Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Sarah Michelle Gellar was Susan Lucci's daughter on All My Children.

Hollywood soaps like Days of Our Lives, General Hospital, and The Young and the Restless also produced stars. Tom Selleck, for instance, was a Y&R hunk before becoming Magnum, P.I. There are a lot of current stars right now on hit shows who were daytime characters just a few years ago. After the jump, we count down the top ten primetime stars who started in soaps.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... and a lot of it happened right on our TV screens. As we look forward to 2009, here's one more glimpse back at what was good and what was really NOT in the year gone by.

Overall, it seems like the Writer's Strike really hurt the business. Shows that might have survived, didn't. New shows have been stuck in development longer than usual. But despite all that, there were moments that were thrilling, shows that are terrific ... and those that weren't.