Have You Been Watching...? Neighbours: The Finale (2022)

 

I clearly remember watching Neighbours in the late 1980’s on BBC1, the tales of everyday folk living together in Ramsay Street, a cul-de-sac in Melbourne, Australia. My recollections go right back to the earliest of episodes (I must’ve been off school ill).  I can’t have been the only one. Legend has it, when the BBC began showing the Australian soap opera in the daytime schedules of 1986, kids bunked off school to watch it, resulting in an extra showing in the evenings! This pattern of broadcast (one in the afternoon and another at tea-time) served the series all the way from those teen-lovers Scott and Charlene days, through to it’s departure from BBC1 to its new home on Channel 5 in 2007 right through to the date of its final episode.

I wasn’t the most dedicated Neighbours fan, after they heydays of Scott, Charlene, Joe and Kerry, I dipped in and out over the years. It was like an old friend that you didn’t have to keep in touch with, they were always around and when you did make contact again, it was like no time had passed between you. It was like a comfortable old cardigan or blanket. However, in late 2021/early 2022 Channel 5, who by now were the soap’s biggest financial backers, said they would stop showing the series from the summer. The race was on to find another home for the series, but to no avail. Production ceased in June 2022 and the final episode aired on Friday 29th June 2022 (in the UK).

So, how does a studio end a show that has run, pretty much, every weekday for 37 years totalling close to 9000 instalments? Think about that dear reader, Neighbours launched the same year as Eastenders, how on earth do you write an ending that both celebrates the achievement and satisfies both avid watcher and lapsed fan? Well, the Neighbours producers do it in the way they know so well, with heaps of nostalgia and positivity.

Storyline-wise, as we enter the final three episodes (8901, 8902 & 8903, fact fans), there’s a mass exodus of residents leaving Ramsay Street for a variety of reasons and seeing the houses up for sale is causing Street stalwart Susan Kennedy to feel very much adrift. Not only are the neighbours leaving, but her nemesis Izzy Hoyland is back, trying to worm her way into the family through her eldest son, Malcolm. Izzy isn’t the only face back. Over the extended episode, we see many faces from the series’ past, including Scott and Charlene, Madge and Harold, Mike and Jane, Clive, Des, Shane, Phil, Lauren, Beth, Flick, Donna, Tad and so many more. Eagle eyed viewers will also note secret (or not) nods to other cast members, for example a letter addressed to T. Oliver. Tom Oliver played Lou Carpenter on the show for many years.

What could bring all these people together at once? It’s a wedding of course, that of Jared “Toadfish” Rebecchi and Melanie Pearson (previously married to Street legend Joe Mangel). They are another couple planning to up sticks and move on from the iconic cul-de-sac. It’s not just a wedding either, the finale is full of the storylines of the type that kept the viewers flocking to the series for years. Schemes come undone, lovers fall apart, lovers find each other and the whole thing is just loaded with hope and positivity. There’s even a nod to the legendary fisticuffs of old. This was one of the things that set Neighbours apart from it’s soap rivals. Even when Neighbours tried to be hard, with hostage takings, killings etc, it just didn’t sit right. It was out of the norm for the show. Neighbours was at its best when being sunny and bright and happy. It did silly storylines aplenty (gorillagram, anyone?) alongside the drama (storm of the century, psychopathic teachers et al).

The finale is an hour-long fun filled nostalgia-fest yet sowing the seeds for a potential return if another network picks it up (it wouldn’t be the first time – the series was axed after 170 episodes on Network 7 before Channel 10 picked it up in 1986). If you are feeling a bit low, this is absolutely ‘chicken soup’ for the soul. Thank you, Neighbours, for all the entertainment over the last 37 years. If you’ve followed the show on and off for decades, you will enjoy gasping as some of the faces appear on screen and might get confused when you don’t recognise them at all at first, just like our own good friends. I enjoyed it immensely and will miss it when it’s gone. Well, I have all my DVDs of the early episodes lined up and ready to go! Only 8,903 to go…

Episode count: 8903

Season count: 37

Availability: DVDs of early episodes are available, current episodes streaming on My5. Heads up, the English DVDs are long out of print, and the Australian ones are even rarer. Check out “Nachbarn”, the German releases, they have the original English soundtracks too. Readily available at the moment.