Although I can’t claim to have watched Neighbours since the late 90s, I still found its demise this week oddly melancholic.
If you weren’t a child in the late 80s and early 90s it’s difficult to overstate how big an impact Neighbours played in our lives.
From the moment BBC One controller Michael Grade shrewdly listened to his school-age daughter’s request and started repeating that day’s episode at 5.35pm, the show became a phenomenon.
Since we’re now in an age when children’s attentions are split between YouTube, video games and a host of social media options, the idea that young people would gravitate towards a frivolous soap opera feels positively quaint.
‘I found it all a bit sad’
I’m not saying modern TV programmes don’t have the power to impact the cultural landscape, but these days it’s more likely to be dark, complex, adult stories that break through – things like Game of Thrones, Squid Game or The Sopranos – rather than a show that gave us Scott and Charlene’s wedding, Harold Bishop’s amnesia-inspired return from the dead and, most wonderfully, a dream sequence for Ramsay Street dog Bouncer.
And let’s not forget all the actors from the past who have gone on to even more success since leaving the soap – Kylie, of course, but also Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce and Liam Hemsworth. (You could even count Russell Crowe, since he had a small part in the series back in the day).
But now it’s all over and, after a week of nostalgic episodes featuring a host of those famous faces, Neighbours is no more. I’ll be honest and say I found it all a bit sad.
It’s the same feeling I had when my old primary school was knocked down – something that was so intrinsically linked with childhood is no longer around and
the only way I can revisit it is in my memories.
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