Aussie soap "Neighbours" is DEAD to ME!

While I confess to not having seen this in yeeaars, I'm still shocked! Why can't Australia networks afford to pay for it by themselves?

How many Aussie actors got their start on this show?

So Home & Away won in the end.

Quite a lot of hotties in this show over the years

I always thought it was sweet that my grandpa and great-uncle - ex-soldiers who loved race cars and motorbikes - were both big fans of Neighbours.

I like the suggestion I saw on Twitter that the whole series could turn out to be one of Bouncer's dream sequences.

[quote]How many Aussie actors got their start on this show?

ALL of them.

Cassius has been the inspiration for many a wank for sure

I used to watch Neighbours in the early days of OWN network here in the US. It was fun.

[quote] Quite a lot of hotties

But they were all presented in a tediously coy manner to titillate and not offend females. The men may shown their chest but no buttocks.

[quote]Aussie soap "Neighbours" is DEAD to ME!

I got to be...got to be certain!

BEARKING: NEIGHBOURS es morte.

Neighbours catered for a British viewers.

1. So they attempted to include some Indian residents to appease Woke Britain.

2. They included that English concept of using "Embarrassment Nudity to get Laughs".

.....

What will happen to the himbos now?

The himbos will go Home and Away

That position has been filled R15

Australia made Neighbours for itself for many years, until it started showing in Britain and became a big hit there.

It's been on for over 35 years because the British were keen to pay to keep it going. I'm sure Australian producers COULD afford to keep doing it, but why would they want to, when they could do something new?

To the question how many Aussie actors got their start on it (or Home and Away) - the ones who became famous without going to the top acting schools. Those who did that mostly took a different path. If you went to NIDA or WAAPA and you ended up on Neighbours, you probably were never going to make it in LA anyway. You were either one of the older-generation characters on Neighbours (anyone past their mid-40s didn't have the same overseas opportunities as the Blanchett generation) or you didn't have the talent.

I think it has been a British coproduction many years.

Yes, it has. But it was an Aussie solo production for many years before that, and it still looked more or less the same. It's not like it became a lot more expensive to produce, it was just that British money made it worthwhile to keep going past what reason would otherwise have dictated.

Alot of them end up doing CW shows. Or star in one big blockbuster before disappearing.

.....

It would have been cancelled sometime in the later 90s without the British market to keep it going. It's been a very long time since it had a commercially viable audience in Australia.

I still remember my teenage crush on Chris Hemsworth when he was on Home & Away. He was even more beautiful then than he is now.

That sounds awful 😖 r21.

How did they end the show? Did they blow up Ramsey Street like Walnut Grove to never come back? Or did they leave options for a later return?

It hasn't screened yet, R25.

The Australian soaps featured all white casts until only recently. Until the last ten years when minorities found a voice on social media and began to effect change, this was the norm. Australia were way behind the US and Britain in that respect.

[quote] The Australian soaps featured all white casts until only recently.

That has changed with a vengeance. All commercials now feature a Jamaican females with Golliwag hair and ENORMOUS smiles. Or Indian ladies with ENORMOUS smiles. And Asiatics. And one bank (I think) features a fat bull dike and a fat homo-couple.

Final episode screening now in Oz.

DLers should look it up: Guy Pearce has returned (in motorcycle leathers), and they've used it as an opportunity to show flashbacks to when he was young and cute. The only other return-ee at the moment is Peter O'Brien (Miranda Otto's RL husband), but it's a triple-ep there's quite a way to go. Stand by for updates.

Ahhh, Jesse Spencer+Speedos= endless wank bank material for a teenage boy just discovering masturbation.

anyone who keeps that ugly talentless common actor who plays Toadie employed for 25 years needs to be cancelled.

what happened to Rebekah Elmaloglou? she looks like a baby elephant!

The Australian soaps despite having good looking younger characters are historically infamous for being sexless affairs. They were safe, puritan shows.

Final episode just finished. Spoilers follow.

Guy Pearce was the only returning performer who had any kind of chance to act, which he did far better than the show is used to. The writing team was full fathom five out of its depth. Kylie and Jason arrived about an hour from the end and had virtually no lines. I think "Where is everyone?" "I know what you're thinking" and someone's name were the sum total of their joint utterances. Because hardly anyone who is in the show now was there when they were, they were kept separate from the body of the plot instead of being introduced into it, and watched the final celebrations from a next-door verandah. It was very odd, since (a) you would expect that every kid that had grown up on Ramsay Street since had heard about them (their wedding united the founding families of the street), and (b) we were asked to believe they'd been in Queensland all this time but nobody had ever visited them while there on holiday.

Toadie was getting married in this episode, so they had a lot of people send messages by Zoom, which the wedding party watched on TV. That's how they incorporated the good wishes of Margot Robbie, Delta Goodrem and numerous others I had trouble recognising. Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance met in a park that had nothing to do with the action and discovered they knew some of the same people, so they didn't even get to watch from next door.

Even more creepily, there was a section at the end where Susan wondered what people who had been killed off by the show would be like if they were still around -- pull back to reveal the ancient actors as they are now.

It felt as though the writers were just determined to finish the plot they were currently working on and (apart from Guy Pearce) everyone else was just an annoyance that had to be wedged in somewhere.

R33 never saw Number 96.

Whoever said Australian soaps were behind in casting non-White actors is slightly mistaken. I remember Neighbours circathe early 90s Julie Martin (who would have been at home here BTW) accused the new Asian family of eating her family dog!

r34, I thought the 20th anniversary episode did a much better job of giving tribute to the past. This would have been better served as the final episode:

except r36 the Lims never featured in the opening credits and the eating pet dog storyline was blatantly racist.

R30 - So basically it was "Three's Company" as a soap opera?

If only they had all lived in a cul-de-sac they would have stayed relevant forever.

Toadie got married again? He never learns.

Evidently. You should have seen the woman he was marrying.

R30 Typical example of 'Neighbour's-style Embarrassment Nudity'.

Exposing the male body is assumed to be naughty and shameful.

Calm down, guys. Neighbours regular timeslot in Australia for most of its life was 5.30 or 6 pm. It was never prime time. The main audience was young teens. It was also made in chilly Melbourne, where there is a lot less call for people to be wearing skimpy swimsuits than in Home and Away, which is made for a similar audience, but in sunny-10-months-of-the-year Palm Beach, Sydney.

If you want to see progressive Australian programming you might look out for the serious dramas that aired after 8.30.

[quote] serious dramas

Which do you recommend?

R38 no one suggests the character wasn't being racist to them, that was the point. To show what non-whites faced from prejudiced neighbours.

The Lim family were only brought in for a short time.

The show was too white. It had to go.

R45, from the 90s on, in no particular order -- Redfern Now, Underbelly Season 1, Phoenix, Wentworth, Mystery Road (Season 1 only: no Judy Davis after that), Mr In-Between, East West 101, Wildside, Rake (dramedy), Heartland with Cate Blanchett (her first - and last? - TV lead). Aside from Rake those are all gritty, complex dramas which are by no means "too white". There's some male flesh in Underbelly and some of the others have a gay character or two, but if you want dramas with what the classifiers would call "gay themes" it's a different list. Wentworth (the name of a women's prison) is a lesbian fave, of course.

It was always on borrowed time after Fremantle sold Channel 5, Viacom were never going to continue the scammy tax evading deal they'd cooked up.

R30 I was a kid when Billy was on but I certainly had special feelings towards him! I think in that scene Anne convinced him to pose for her "art". Beautiful.

I also remember he once had to use the Scully's shower and one of the girls walked in "as I was pulling my undies up!". How I wished that had been me!

Here is the final scene. I'm sure they took inspiration from Jane Wyman in the Falcon Crest finale.

Could never stand neighbours nor home and away. Collectively they made me never want to visit Australia, seems so boring there.

Lovely ending. Glad Susan got the voice over, she's my favourite

Fans of gay-marrieds David & Aaron are over the moon that the show gave them a parting gift FINALLY featuring the couple in bed.

It's actually pretty good, imho.

(An editor has said that this version that aired in the UK broadcast on Channel 5 was cut somewhat. Haven't had a chance to view the Australian episode yet to compare.)

[Quote] Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance met in a park that had nothing to do with the action and discovered they knew some of the same people, so they didn't even get to watch from next door.

How did Holly look? They should have had her do a scene with Olympia instead.

[Quote] Could never stand neighbours nor home and away. Collectively they made me never want to visit Australia, seems so boring there.

Because soap operas are an accurate representation of a country 🙄

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Not a bad ending. The Kylie scenes were obviously filmed separately. The balcony she is standing on has a special significance; it is where her first scenes were filmed in 1986 where she punched Scott Robinson in the face.

A big oversite was not including Elaine Smith in the finale. She has long retired from acting but was the first sex bomb on the show as Daphnie the stripper... The early standout, her character died but... So what?

I was only a real fan of the canceled Channel Seven1985 version (which was despised by most), but would occasionally tune in to watch it on Channel Ten in the early 90s.

[quote] An editor has said that this version that aired in the UK broadcast on Channel 5 was cut somewhat. Haven't had a chance to view the Australian episode yet to compare.

Update to R54: I just watched the scene on Australia's Channel 10 and there was no difference, and the scene length was exactly the same.

There was some sort of racial controversy on set a few years ago according to the actress who played the mother of a South Asian family.

I was glad to see Jane got her happy ending with Mike

I'm sure Elaine Smith would have been asked to appear.

She's now an overweight school teacher in suburban Melbourne so I'm sure she'd prefer people remember her as she was.

Guy Pearce saved the whole thing with his classy and generous appearance with Jane.

Kylie and Jason's scenes were filmed separately and you'll note that Mike is never seen in the same shot. He wasn't there with them despite tricky editing.

The writing on the show has been sub-par for a while, so the finale was naturally a real mess.

After ignoring reality for decades they belatedly got on the diversity bandwagon to grasp at some relevance. To the point that half the street are lesbians and Guy was given a daughter with challenges.

The show was no longer relevant. People are upset because of the past, and the feeling of attachment to the show. No one will miss it as a contemporary program.

Finn should've come back from the dead and blown up the street

if the ending was realistic, the street would be bulldozed and replaced with monster houses, multi story apartments and crammed in townhouses, with the gardens and pools all ripped out and no one knowing or ever speaking to each other.

How many of these actors will end up joining Home & Away?

Home & Away has 5 years left, absolute max.

Laughable the reaction to Kylie. Some Neighbours fans calling her a diva, ingrate who demands special treatment. She flew home especially to shoot for a couple of hours, probably weeks before the others. How dear of her that she even remembers a show she worked on 35 years ago.

I would like to do things to Takaya Honda's bottom.

Who the fuck wants to watch a TV soap about middle class people in suburbia?

No one. The show is cancelled.

Kylie only had 2 lines and her heart clearly wasn't in it. In contrast, Guy Pearce had an actual storyline, which shocked me.

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I thought it was a nice touch how they both ended up being teachers on the show

Guy Pearce looks more attractive now than when he was young. I think 'Plain Jane Superbrain' getting a second chance with him was a fantasy every gay person in the audience could relate to. It was the best part of the final episode.

I wish Annalies had been there-Kimberly Davies was so gorgeous. I thought she’d be a big star.

I guess that old Canning crone wasn’t allowed to come back because she was anti-vax?

R56 That gay-for-pay relationship was as unrealistic as the show itself.

[quote] no one knowing or ever speaking to each other.

You're right. Neighbours are no longer neighbourly.

I like to think Aaron is drenching Dr. David’s hole with his Peter North-like streams of voluminous cum.

[quote] Dr. David

Ws he the one played by the gay-for-pay male model?

No, that’s Aaron.

Watched the finale last night. "Especially for You" playing as Scott and Charlene arrived was the campest thing that's ever happened. Toadie's wife is... yikes. Ghost Madge's appearance was a bit weird; would have preferred a moment of Harold briefly reminiscing about her instead.

Yikes. The actress who played Sky Mangel looked like she had terminal cancer.

I thought it was a good ending, especially the voice over by Susan at the end, the use of the old theme songs and cast pictures. Couldn't give a flying fig about Toadie or any of the new characters but it was good to see some old face.

Were Scott and Charlene back for a reason that I missed? Or just to have a nosy..

Nice to see that horny Daniel McPherson back as Joel Samuels. He was in my wank bank as a teen

Where was Alan Dale? He’d have made a good ghost.

I had a hot-for-teacher type crush on him for a while.

Toadie has a real downgrade from Dee and Sonya with that new wife.

I watched the show growing up, my era was the Scullys and Timmins. My mum was never a big soap fan but she loved Neighbours for some reason and if I wanted to watch the Simpsons or Buffy, I had to get through Neighbours first and boy was Paul a cunt in those days and Izzy the best bitch on TV at the time.

Shame it's gone, always assumed it would be one of those constants in life that I'd read about or randomly see on TV.

Is Craig McLachlan still considered a sex pest and is that why he wasn't included in the show?

Did anyone else find Helen Daniels a pontificating, sour old bag?

Yes, R86. He withdrew from his OWN lawsuit (for libel) at the moment when the women were to start testifying against him. He might as well be walking around with a placard reading SEX PEST.

I heard back in the early days that McLachlan also liked dick, though.

I had a brief fling with Felice Arena who played Marco Alessi. He wasn’t on the show very long. The cute guy who played his younger brother Rick lasted a few years, though.

Anybody have a comprehensive list of the gay actors on this show? I know Richard Grieve was one.

R89 is Marco the one who lost his mind and though God was speaking to him? Who was engaged to Annalaise?

I never knew Richard Grieve was gay, R89! I can kind of see it, looking back. I remember him from H&A as Dr Lachie with the interfering mother.

[quote] Felice Arena

[quote][R89] is Marco the one who lost his mind and though God was speaking to him? Who was engaged to Annalaise?

That was Mark Gottlieb, played by the gorgeous Bruce Samazan.

^ Well shit, none of my neighbors look like THAT!

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He's held up okay, but when he was young... oh my. And that Malcolm Kennard was even hotter. WTF was that dopey girl in the middle for?

^. That "dopey girl in the middle" was lucky enough to share silly love scenes with 25 year old Murray Bartlett.

I had the serious hots for Alan Dale back then. I wanted hot daddy Jim Robinson inside me quite deeply. He did really well working in film/TV when he moved to the US but not so much in recent years.

Anne Charleston (Madge) always came off in interviews as a contrarian cunt.

R93 thanks, I had "special feelings" for him when I watched as a kid.

R98 I remember reading that Anne Haddy (Helen) wasn't pleased the show started to focus on and appeal so much to kids, as this isn't what she signed up for.

I remember Anne Charlestown (Madge) being rightly pissed that the writers had no idea how to write for a strong woman (upon her return) in the late 90s and turned Madge into a victim.

It’s funny it’s spelled that British way with the superfluous Frenchie vowels, yet they pronounce it

NIE buz

There go the sets ....

The actor who played Dr. David is quite queeny in this video and I’m all for that.

The fat, untalented kid is annoying as hell.

I hope Susan wins a Golden Logie for her stellar work in the last episode

I love Jackie Woodburne. She seems like a sweetheart, too. Does she have a long term (female) partner?

I always thought Lyn Scully was the more interesting character of that matriarch role.

I liked Lyn a lot, too. The husband was kind of boring, though. Typical Aussie macho bloke.

I hope Dr. David will present his hole on OnlyFans soon.

Just caught up on the final, not having watched it for years. No-one has yet quite grasped the full horror of what they did. They married Toadie to MELANIE. From the 1980s! Joe Mangel's ex! With that laugh!

YEEURGH YEEURGH YEEURGH. She even got to demonstrate it for us again at her wedding.

What the hell? There is at least a 20 year age gap there, though Toadie looks a lot older than he is.

Anyway, fun to watch but the show was clearly a shadow of its former self. I think I worked out who most of the returning faces were. I totally blanked Melissa Bell (Lucy Robinson), no idea which one she was meant to be. Would have been nice to have a Helen reference in the final episode, she was the woman with a heart of gold who kept the whole street together.

The only time I ever went to Melbourne I went to one of the 'Neighbours nights' the production company put on where you meet some of the cast (DON'T JUDGE ME). The only Australians there were the cast members and the bar staff. Pretty much everyone else was from the UK.

[Quote] I watched the show growing up, my era was the Scullys and Timmins.

I thought i was the only one who remembers the Timmins. The actress who played Bree lost weight and doesn't seem to do much acting now.

[Quote] Yikes. The actress who played Sky Mangel looked like she had terminal cancer.

I liked her song Mistake. She was no Holly Valance or Bec Cartwright though.

The guy who played Boyd was a hot bit of spunk

^ Who?

The finale was able to pull in 4 million on Channel 5 in the UK.

[quote] Natalie Imbruglia and Holly Valance met in a park that had nothing to do with the action and discovered they knew some of the same people.

A missed sapphic opportunity😔

Guy coming back to the soap was good faith and respect. Respect for the show that gave him a career and respect for Annie. He and Annie are still very good friends and see each other every time he is in town.

Does anyone know what happened to Serena & Stingray? They’re the only characters I remember, from the brief period of a year where I watched in middle school (because a new casual friend I had at the time liked it).

From what I gather, they died young in some sort of vague accident, but clearly I’d stopped watching by then because I don’t remember that happening.

Listening to Holly Valance's Naughty Girl, and always wondered what she's referring to when she sings "Been a naughty girl, a real bad so and so, done too many things a girl shouldn't know"

Is she talking about triple anal?

R118 well, that line continues, "swear I never knew, I could hurt you so"--BDSM? And then the next line goes, "the more you try to stay, the more I let you go", which from an innuendo standpoint made me think of bondage, or maybe overstim. The ground-up shots of her in stiletto boots kind of implies dominance.

It's defo a song about kink of some kind.

Back in 2002, Holly Valance apparently went Top 20 in the U.K. charts.

Then, I was only a kid at the time, and I don't remember her being on telly and that, but fair play to her, she did break in for a second.

Holly had a number 1 and 4 hits in total.

Then she appeared in Prison Break and married a billionaire.

[Quote] From what I gather, they died young in some sort of vague accident, but clearly I’d stopped watching by then because I don’t remember that happening.

I thought it was cancer? Or maybe Stingray did die in an accident 🤔

[Quote] she appeared in Prison Break and married a billionaire.

Holly was a hot commodity for a second. I love that stupid DOA movie she did. Naughty Girl still holds up and i think State Of Mind is underrated.

Holly Valance is a 'bed skirt or a bed ruffle'.

"Neighbours" has always been dead and dull and bourgeois.

'Home and Away' has always been full of the outdoors and vivacity.

That you use at Christmas, R123.

Holly's so gorgeous, she could easily toaster-oven scores of women if she wanted. Lesbians would pay to kiss her feet.

Looks like Neighbours may not be dead after all. Deadline reports that Amazon's Freevee ordered a new season to be aired in the second half of 2023. I have not watched Neighbours for twenty years (live in the US), but I'm ready for it. I always liked their low-key drama.

They betta bring back Cyclone Sass and Stingray.

OT but RIP Dieter Brummer. I had no idea he died last year.

Shane Parrish should have been gay, though, I said what I said. He was so flirty with Damian, Jack, Tug, Nick--the list goes on. He also liked an innuendo.

[quote] I remember reading that Anne Haddy (Helen) wasn't pleased the show started to focus on and appeal so much to kids, as this isn't what she signed up for.

R99 Anne Haddy did not suffer fools gladly. She had a tonne of health problems, yet was the very definition of professionalism on set and was held in high esteem by the whole cast.

For a show so identified as being "for teens" they did offer a range of parts for older actresses like Charleston, Vivean Gray (Mrs Mangle), and Myra De Groot who had been a star in the West End and on Broadway, and also starred in several episodes of Bewitched.

Anne Charleston was a cantankerous old bitch, extremely jealous of the attention that Kylie, Jason and the young cast got.

I hope Annalise can make it to the new show.

Kimberley Davies is married in real life to former model and now Dr. Jason Harvey who (in the purple shirt) skysurfed in this famous Coke ad.

Kimberley Davies deserved to become just as big an international star as Margot Robbie.

What is Kimberley up to these days?

Kimberley Davies occasionally turns up on Australian shows, but has mostly retired to raise her family.

She caught Aaron Spellings' eye in a big way but she never seemed that happy acting in mostly b- tv and movies in her 5 years in LA.

This was several years before the invasion of Aussie soap actors, there was only Nicole and Watts. She could have later easily played the Scarlett Johansson or Margot Robbie roles.

Kimberley seemed much more natural in her Aussie shows, not as wooden as she appeared to be in the US. She also was a HUGE star down under. I thought she did a great job narrating the Neighbours 20th year anniversary special.

I want a date with....

[quote]Guy coming back to the soap was good faith and respect. Respect for the show that gave him a career and respect for Annie. He and Annie are still very good friends and see each other every time he is in town.

Annie Jones looked great in the final episode. She is a terrific actress and made quite a comeback a few years ago in the show Underbelly.

It was a very Jacki Weaveresque style of performance.

She was also a welcome addition to the show Wentworth. I hope to see her deliver these levels of performance again in other things.

I am Kylie's biggest fan and she does not look bad at all. But it was refreshing to see Annie looking so good and so natural.

Annie was another one who had a hard time coping with the 80s level of Neighbours fame, and kind of dropped out after having a few failures. But eventually, her talent did win out.

Annie and Kylie: The early years.

R137 memories 🥰

[quote]Guy coming back to the soap was good faith and respect.

He was on The Project two nights ago and they said that to his face and congratulated him on the sincerity of his performance. Neighbours fans will be interested in what he had to say about the show.

Yeah, but now the sweet ending his character had with Jane is shot to shit. He's not going to come back as a regular.

Maybe Mike will get killed off and Jane returns to Erinsborough.