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Neighbours: A New Chapter sees the long-running – then cancelled in 2022 – soap return to our TV sets, and in the UK, this is courtesy of Amazon Freevee, which means no subscription to Prime Video is required, but you do get some adverts. Not as many as regular telly, though.
It left our screens because of falling ratings, and when shows disappear, rarely do they return, although I’d still love for a comeback for BBC’s Ideal, with Johnny Vegas.
When I used to watch this regularly many moons ago, Scott and Charlene were in the flushes of youth, Mike was still playing his saxophone, and Bouncer was dreaming of the ideal wedding. Most of these characters returned last year, but given how big a star Guy Pearce (as Mike) became, would he be able to commit to a regular stint on this show, again? After all, he’s now married to Jane (Annie Jones), so he can’t just be a cad and disappear, surely?
In 2022, Toadie (Ryan Moloney) and Melanie (Lucinda Cowden) married, planned to move away, but because reasons, changed their mind and went back to Ramsay Street, while Paul (Stefan Dennis) and Terese (Rebekah Elmaloglou) also decided not to move away, and continue to run Lassiters. Well, it was all ending, so no-one will have to pick up on these plot threads, will they? Erm…
Thankfully, Alan Fletcher (long-time Neighbour Karl Kennedy) has got his hair back after being diagnosed with alopecia areata, and when Harold – living with them – spots the Ramsay Street history book and feels it needs updating, Susan (Jackie Woodburne) declares: “A lot’s happened in the last two years”, to which comes from Karl: “Yes, a lot of things we didn’t see coming”. Indeed…
This new run also sees a brand new family enter the street – Remi, Cara, JJ and Dex, but who’s house are they going into? Well, Mike’s not there… and Jane’s soon to follow, for a couple of weeks at least. Now, if I was going on holiday for a short time, I might pass a key to some neighbours and just ask them to keep an eye on the house not getting any undue interest. In this universe, Jane lets in the family in question, courtesy of Air-BNB… erm… Rent-a-Home. Yeah, that would NOT happen with me. I don’t trust anyone into my house unless I’m sure they understand NO SHOES ON CARPET! And I don’t like anyone else touching any of my stuff, so I’d rather earn zero pennies while I’m out and about.
Still, and without any inside knowledge, I do feel like placing a bet that Mike and Jane getting abducted by aliens after their hollybobs, so the new lot stay. I could be wrong, but time will tell. The first episode also includes a forthcoming preview at the end, but I was still nonethewiser.
And after ending with a wedding, this return sees another wedding! But for who? I was certainly confused.Dom!
So far, I’ve only seen the first two episodes, and after the opener, the second one sees events settle down into their usual flow, and everyone picks up their respective batons as if they’ve been carrying like they’ve never been away.
The last time I watched Neighbours regularly was just before it switched from BBC1 to Channel 5. It wasn’t just that the programme makers stuck on an awful ‘fake film’ effect – which I understand had been in place for a number of weeks before this, but that the BBC still insisted on this effect NOT being included on their supplied episodes – but also that most of the characters, for whom I had invested in their stories, had left by that point.
Can I be swayed to watch Neighbours: A New Chapter on a regular basis? Well, these days, the only soap I watch regularly is BBC1’s Doctors, and that’s been a TV fixture for me for just over 16 years, but similarly, a lot of the good characters have left, and the story-of-the-day can be a bit ridiculous, so, for whichever one I go with, you have to ask the question of each soap: Don’t It Make You Feel Good?
(Okay, so it’s only an hour out of my day to watch both, but then I wouldn’t have been able to use the Stefan Dennis song title as a joke!)
But then again, there’s still that portrait of Mrs Mangel… the horror…
Thanks to our friends at Amazon Freevee for the screener prior to broadcast.
Neighbours: A New Chapter is on Amazon Freevee from today. New episodes are released Monday to Thursday each week.
NOTE:
Trailer posted: August 7th 10:00
Updated with spoiler-free review of episodes 1 and 2: September 18th 7:30.
Cert: 
Running time: 25 minutes per episode
Release date: September 18th 2023
Studio: Amazon Freevee
Format: 2.00:1
Director: Kate Kendall
Writers: Sarah Mayberry, Jason Herbison
Music: Tony Hatch, Jackie Trent
Cast:
Susan Kennedy: Jackie Woodburne
Karl Kennedy: Alan Fletcher
Toadie Rebecchi: Ryan Moloney
Melanie Pearson: Lucinda Cowden
Jane Harris: Annie Jones
Mike Young: Guy Pearce
Paul Robinson: Stefan Dennis
Terese Willis: Rebekah Elmaloglou
Harold Bishop: Ian Smith
Lucy Robinson: Melissa Bell
Holly Hoyland: Lucinda Armstrong Hall
Reece Sinclair: Mischa Barton
Sadie Rodwell: Emerald Chan
Leo Tanaka: Tim Kano
Wendy Rodwell: Candice Leask
Byron Stone: Xavier Molyneux
Haz Devkar: Shiv Palekar
Mackenzie Hargreaves: Georgie Stone
Remi Varga-Murphy: Naomi Rukavina
Cara Varga-Murphy: Sara West
JJ Varga-Murphy: Riley Bryant
Dex Varga-Murphy: Marley Williams
Andrew Rodwell: Lloyd Will
Hugo Rebecchi: Tanner Ellis-Anderson
Sam Young: Henrietta Graham
Abigail Tanaka: Nikita Kato
Nell Rebecchi: Ayisha Salem-Towner
Angie Rebecchi: Lesley Baker
Imogen Willis: Ariel Kaplan
Daniel Robinson: Tim Phillipps
Callum Rebecchi: Morgan Baker
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.