So, AS THE WORLD TURNS has been canceled. The World will stop turning in September of 2010.

The stunning news has just hit. Y'know that "Five Stages of Grief" stuff? I'm still on Stage 1: Denial. This cannot be happening. Not to AS THE WORLD TURNS. Not in just 10 short months. Noooooo. Not another one. Not so soon.

I know CBS faces a lot of harsh realities, and has to pay bills in this bad economy just like the rest of us, but canceling another venerable soap opera cannot be the right decision. Okay, so it will help the network bottom line in the short term, in the sense that it will not have to cut a check to license another round of ATWT. CBS has already done this gruesome dance once this year, axing GUIDING LIGHT in favor of a remake of LET'S MAKE A DEAL. The game show retread is pulling in a better rating by a razor-thin margin, but since LMAD costs practically nothing to produce, the network comes out ahead in the cold, hard calculus of counting beans. But what about the long run? Corporate shareholders are only as happy as their last dividend check. What happens in the following financial quarter? Is BOLD AND BEAUTIFUL next up to be sacrificed on the altar of Mammon?

Look at that, I just now turned the corner into Stage 2: Anger.