Forty years ago, some plucky kids with broad accents rode their bikes around a quintessentially Australian cul-de-sac, lined with postwar houses that could have been any of ours. A catchy tune promised that, if we were there for one another, we could become good friends with the people next door. But now it’s over.
Neighbours has a habit of ending. After it was axed in 1985 by its first Australian broadcaster, Channel Seven, the network even destroyed the sets to make sure it was truly gone. We have, more than once, grieved the end of a community so tightknit that the school principal is also your estranged dad’s ex-wife’s former fake-son-in-law’s surrogate mother.
But who is “we” now?
Let’s look at what happened. After Neighbours was cancelled in 2022, the internet got extremely noisy. This can’t be true! it yelled. We were just about to start watching it again! Is Holly Valance still on it? No? Well, save it anyway! The demands were loud and frequent. Most days, #SaveNeighbours would trend on multiple platforms and it seemed, then at least, there might be actual heft behind the outcry.
Then Amazon noticed this. Maybe it was an opportunity. Surely, it reasoned, such passionate support for an Australian icon would have to translate into viewership? In September 2023, the show was revived on Freevee, Amazon’s free streaming service that was supported by ad revenue.
The fans rejoiced. The new platform delivered a parade of new and aged-up faces, the departure and subsequent multiple returns of Toadie, deaths, rekindlings and a violent siege at Harold’s. It fit a lot into its short encore, a sort of soap opera death roll that was almost too much.
In its final week, Ramsay Street faces death by urban sprawl – a freeway project threatens to be built right through it, destroying everything the residents know and love. But while Susan Kennedy may be able to save the street, she cannot save Neighbours.
The show’s executive producer, Jason Herbison, said in interviews that Neighbours had been considered “a very big success” on Freevee. Certainly, in the UK, Ramsay Street’s spiritual home, the show was regularly top of the Prime charts, ahead of huge hits such as Clarkson’s Farm. It was, during its revival, even nominated for two Emmys in its first eligible year: Guy Pearce for outstanding guest performance – he did not win, but I watched those performances and agree that they were outstanding – and for outstanding daytime drama series.
Why, then, has it all come crashing down once more?
The first reason is that Amazon shut down Freevee in August and, despite its allegedly strong performance, Neighbours was not given a seat at the wider Prime table. But the second reason is crucial: Neighbours fans’ capacity to seem so, so, so much bigger than they really are.
I worked on the show in the early 2010s, in the era of Toadie and Sonya (RIP). I experienced iconic moments such as the death of the Kennedys’ beloved dog Audrey, the return of Sarah Beaumont, and embarrassing myself in front of the Genie from Down Under (Sandy Winton, who played Michael Williams), with whom I had been in love since I was 15.
I also learned an important and curious lesson. Part of my job was to manage the Neighbours Twitter account. I tweeted things like behind the scenes videos and live streams and a map of where Toadie’s rattail is buried. Day after day, I logged on to find a handful of people making hundreds of all-caps tweets insisting that Mark Brennan – a very hot but also terrible cop character who had been killed in witness protection – was secretly alive.
At that time, Brennan was canonically dead. The writers, the producers, the caterers … everyone knew he was dead, and I kept reminding the fans of that fact. But they were loud. The same 20-odd people shrieked at me relentlessly. I began to dream about cops rising from their graves.
It worked. After months of this online activism, the decision was reversed: the show brought Brennan back to life. He continued to make the show a little bit worse. And I discovered that the Neighbours fandom is powerful beyond its size.
The noise fans created in 2022 – the outcry Amazon witnessed and acted on – was real. Neighbours people truly, deeply, passionately love this show. Rightly, as well. Before I worked there, I had been a diehard viewer for decades. Neighbours has birthed some of Australian TV’s most iconic moments, from Bouncer’s dream to Harold Bishop being lost at sea and Susan’s famous slap. It has consistently created rare jobs in Australia’s screen industry, which is being systematically decimated.
It’s just that, like many fringe movements, the fans – the ones who actually watch – are a loud minority. A minority with one Freevee account each. By contrast to the reaction in 2022, the latest cancellation of Neighbours seems more one of resigned acceptance that the show should now be allowed to catch a cab to Tullamarine and move to Queensland.
When I watched that last episode in 2022, I cried with my whole face. As I wrote my recap, it really felt complete, finished, even perfect. But, just as with Mark Brennan, the fans could not let it go. They beat their drums until it was resurrected. Maybe now, point proven, we can all find the perfect blend – fond memories and some well-earned rest.
