“Guiding Light,” the longest-running daytime drama in history, breathed its last on Friday. This may be the beginning of the end for soap operas. And since it’s being replaced by “The Price Is Right,” there’s really no way you can spin this as a step forward.

“Guiding Light” certainly did its best to provide a happy ending. In the final episode, several couples got married in rapid succession and two young women announced that they had gotten into Berkeley. The whole cast had to race from one of the weddings to wave goodbye to them, because they both had to leave the very minute they were accepted. (The University of California has become way too spontaneous.)

A long line of former residents walked in to announce they were moving back to town forever. Then everybody went on a picnic. Many Champagne toasts. “This isn’t supposed to happen. ... I’m getting everything I wanted,” a woman told her partner. A man holding a baby got a dream job as a coach. Another man with a baby got a job in construction. Then Josh and Reva, major characters of many decades’ standing, met at a lighthouse and drove off together in a truck.

The whole thing had an air of unreality, and this was only in part because 72 years of tears and trauma ended in the greatest explosion of bliss since the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Previous cost-cutting efforts had caused the series to stop spending money on studio space, and the cast and crew have been wandering around Peapack, N.J., ever since, without much help in the way of costumes or makeup. If “Guiding Light” had lasted another year, the actors would probably have been replaced by bloggers.