Adamski

I remember how massive Sunset Beach was here in the UK, with Channel 5's voiceover man lovingly taking the piss out of it over the end credits, plus the Saturday omnibus episodes. It was a real cult hit. It's baffling to me why BTG hasn't landed on Paramount Plus in other territories outside the US yet. There's definitely an audience for it around the world, and people would be intrigued at being able to watch a soap from the start like they have in America. A soap with a majority black cast would certainly find an audience in the UK.

Six months since its launch, and there's still no news on BTG being made available in the UK, Australia and other markets. What is going on?!

I was disappointed to see Saskia's arc wrapped up so quickly. The actress played her so well, and it was a hoot seeing her seethe menacingly with those deep dark eyes. If the show wasn't ending there's so much more they could have done with her.

In other news, I hadn't watched Neighbours since the 40th in March but am now fully caught up. I have to say I'm really loving it, it feels like the show is firing on all cylinders with a full cast and lots of interconnected stories. A completely different show to the first year of the revival. The Darcy/Amanda storyline was excellent, and thank god it gave Alan and Jackie something to do. It's also given Dame Annie Jones some meaty material to get stuck into. (I really hoped that Amanda's portrait would replace that overbearing one of Mrs Mangel, but sadly not). Cara has also matured into such a well rounded character, I love her, and she was excellent going up against Paul when Chelsea lleft baby Thomas behind. Someone online said she's a little bit Joe Scully and a little bit Pam Willis, I quite like that. Naomi Rukavina was also brilliant in the hospital bed scene where Remi's amnesia was revealed. So soapy! Saskia is a fun addition to the canvas, her evil little smirks are a hoot and I hope the mystery of what's wrong with her continues for a while. She's also made me interested in the teen group for the first time in ages. The actor who plays Dex does 'lovesick puppy' so well, it's adorable. What I've also really enjoyed is the intergenerational aspect, where you have Max sharing scenes with Agnes (loved Anne Charleston's stint), and Sadie sharing scenes with Amanda. It gives the show heart, and I love seeing these young actors learning from industry legends. As for the bad, well they have really done a number on poor Wendy Rodwell, she was very unlikeable during the catfishing saga, and then digging into Andrew's genealogy without his knowledge. But this revolting Andrew/Holly attraction has me fully on Wendy's side again. I also enjoy any scene where Wendy has to plaster on a smile to hide her insecurities/doubts. Candice Leask does that so well. The Rodwell family unit suffers from only having three members, IMO, and although the actor who played Felix was great, it's baffling why he was cast after those quotes from Jason Herbison saying the actor "has a busy life." Also on the negative side is Taye, ye gods he is so plastic and cringe inducing, a real weak link in the cast. The actor only seems to have one facial expression: "sulky bitch." As for making Nell an accidental killer, what exactly was the point? It had no lasting ramifications whatsoever. And as others have said, why cast a gifted and popular actress like Libby Tanner if you're only going to use her for three eps? Really don't want this show to end.

Completely agree with this. David's death has been the making of Aaron as a character, IMO, and he has been so good throughout the revival. Aaron is an excellent 'community' character - you can easily put him in scenes with anyone and it just works. He has charm to burn and adds hugely to the show's feelgood factor. I also love his relationship with Jane. And while we shouldn't have to feel grateful for this, I've always appreciated that an actor who is married to a woman IRL can so convincingly portray male on male desire onscreen. I genuinely believed that Aaron was in love with his 'Boo' and that they fancied each other. And I definitely believed that Aaron was sexually attracted to/had chemistry with both Clint and Rhett during the recent gay love triangle, which was so much fun and very Neighbours.

Me too, so well deserved. Just love the thought of her face on billboards across the UK next year to advertise the new drama.

Dame Jackie Woodburne will be co-starring in a new four-part drama from Fremantle for Channel 5, created by Jason Herbison and filmed at Neighbours' Nunawading studios and in Victoria. Kym Marsh has also been cast. I find this news encouraging, as it keeps the lights on until Neighbours gets saved again, and is what happened last time with Channel 5's Aussie-made dramas from Jason Herbison co-starring British soap stars. (Charlie Brooks, Jo Joyner, Danny Dyer). Only now it's with added Ramsay Street royalty! Am keen to see Jackie getting stuck into a new role. https://tvtonight.com.au/2025/07/jackie-woodburne-to-co-star-in-new-drama-imposter.html

Sydney Morning Herald article on how Neighbours ending will impact the Australian TV industry: If Neighbours has to end – and, after 40 years, 9300 episodes, and two premature deaths, it really does – it’s going out with a bang. Not an explosion, mind, but a party. “I am ending it in a way that sets up future chapters,” says showrunner and executive producer Jason Herbison. “It’ll be very hopeful and optimistic, but it will be different to last time. Most importantly, it absolutely leaves the door open for a few different ways the show could come back in the future.” This is the third time Neighbours has come to an end. And while Australian viewers might shrug and say “so what, I stopped watching years ago”, the impact on our screens could be felt for years to come. When Neighbours folds, it will take around 200 jobs – cast and crew – with it. Perhaps most importantly, it will rob the Australian screen sector of one of its most fertile training grounds, the alumni of which have gone on to make and star in hit and critically acclaimed shows both here and abroad. “The importance of Neighbours and Home and Away, these two institutions in terms of giving people a go, cannot be overstated,” says veteran writer-producer Tony Ayres, creator or co-creator of many of Australia’s most successful series, including Clickbait, Stateless, Glitch and the current Netflix hit Survivors. The trend in Australia (and elsewhere) is to short-run series, often with just four or six episodes and rarely more than 10. Return seasons are few, if any. Neighbours, by contrast, turns out more than 200 episodes a year. A long run means opportunities for new talent to learn the ropes, be tested, and fail in relative safety. No one is going to turn over one episode in a batch of six – at a cost of maybe 10 times an episode of the soap – to a novice. And that means the next generation will have fewer chances to learn how to do it. “It’s very hard to not believe there’s something broken in our ecosystem,” says Ayres. “We had a tentative pathway, a trail of breadcrumbs you could follow through the forest, and it feels like that’s being swept away. “We won’t actually see the results of this for another four or five years, when people like me age out of the industry. But basically, we don’t have a succession plan at the moment.” For decades, Neighbours has primarily been an export product, with the bulk of its audience in the UK. Part of the reason it resonates there is the relentlessly sunny vision of Australia it sells, but on the day I visit Erinsborough in the final week of filming, before the last episodes air in December, it’s wet and bitterly cold. The show employs two production crews, and on this Wednesday the “outside unit” is inside. There are 12 people doing make-up alone. As I head onto set, I pass a visiting class of wardrobe design students, getting a glimpse of a place they might once have expected to secure a job. Dozens of cast members are crowded into The Waterhole set in Studio A, clustered into small groups, miming conversation as the camera moves past them to pick up the action in a particular spot. There are series regulars and returning faves (the producers want to keep as much of the surprise element as possible for fans, so no spoilers here). Elise Jansen is among them. She’s playing Elle Robinson. It’s her third stint on the show, playing a different character each time. Actually, it’s her fourth if you include her day as an extra while at uni. “Growing up, it was my favourite show,” she says. “And to think that now I’ve been able to be on it is quite extraordinary.” Director Scott Major is moving along at a brisk pace. A former actor who skilled up to directing via the show, Major has gone on to handle bigger budgeted dramas (Riptide, Lie with Me, Playing for Keeps). But Neighbours (272 episodes and counting) is his bread and butter. He gets one shot in two takes, then swaps camera positions for a reverse angle of the party. One take and he’s happy. It’s a fast and furious pace, but everyone knows what they’re doing. “Shooting scene after scene after scene is a great way to cut your teeth, a great way to learn,” says Jansen, who happily describes herself as a jobbing actor, like the vast majority in the profession. “It’s a fast-moving train, and you just have to jump on and keep going at the speed that it’s going, and at some point you jump off.” The roll-call of famous actors who’ve graduated from Ramsay Street is well known: Margot, Kylie, Jason, Guy. But there are many others who got their start, or at least an early break, here. Severance‘s Dichen Lachman, The 100’s Eliza Taylor, Xavier Molyneux, who has just been cast as the lead in Vikings spin-off Bloodaxe. But it’s not just the actors, of course. “In my six years here, we’ve trained 10 directors,” says series producer Andrew Thompson, who is responsible for the logistical side of keeping this train on the tracks. “There have been writers who have worked their way up through the script department. One of our sound recorders is someone who did an attachment here a few years ago, we’ve got people in the art department, lighting, continuity people. We’ve been training intimacy co-ordinators … I don’t think there’s a single department that hasn’t had some attachment at some time.” Many of those positions have been formal placements, funded by the Victorian state government through its agency VicScreen. “Neighbours has played a significant role in the growth of Victoria’s screen industry,” says Minister for Creative Industries Colin Brooks, adding that “more than 50 people have taken part in the Neighbours training initiative since 2017, gaining hands-on experience in technical and creative roles. “We are sad to see Neighbours come to an end, but our support for Victoria’s screen industries continues,” he adds, with 55 attachments across nine other productions – including high-end series All Her Fault, The Family Next Door and Goolagong – over the past 12 months. Peter Mattessi is now president of the Australian Writers Guild. He was also the creator of Return To Paradise, the Australian spin-off of the BBC’s hit series Death in Paradise. But he too got his first big break on Neighbours. “I was lucky enough to get my start over 20 years ago, when the show had the resources to take on trainee storyliners with no experience and no credits,” he says (showrunner Herbison also got his start this way, after writing to Channel Ten with some story suggestions when he was still at school). If a trainee had the chops, there would be a job at the end of the placement. “For the next four years, I wrote and rewrote stories and scripts for the show every day, under the immense pressure of having to produce five episodes a week, every week,” says Mattessi. Sometimes he turned out work he was proud of, sometimes not so much. “But I learnt more about writing from what didn’t work than what did. Neighbours was the foundation of my career and it taught me how to be a television writer. I would have been absolutely lost without it.” For Dannika Horvat, Neighbours has offered a way to transition from writing to directing. Through a three-phase attachment, she got to trail a director and observe how it was done, then direct a 10-minute segment of an episode, then a full episode, and finally a block of three. Last week, she watched in delight as her first effort went to air. “It felt amazing,” she says. “It’s such a beloved institution, there’s so much history there, and to see my name in the credits was really humbling. I felt very proud and very grateful that I got to be a part of it.” Just in the nick of time, too. Soon there will be no more attachments. There will be no more roles for promising teenage actors to cut their teeth on. There will be no more weddings or bouts of memory loss or misunderstandings or petty squabbles on Ramsay Street. Or will there? “Neighbours is a beloved brand,” says Herbison. “In writing the ending, I didn’t want to close any doors. But I think if the show were to come back, it might come back a bit differently.” Right now, it’s hard to see it coming back again as a long-form serial. “But,” he says, ever the optimist, “all it would take would be for someone to do one somewhere in the world, and for it to be a massive hit, and then all of a sudden, there might be more of them again.”

In Australia, H&A has been more popular than Neighbours for years, but that's because Ch7 has consistently nurtured and promoted H&A there, as they own it outright. Life's too short to get into how Ch 10 has neglected and mismanaged Neighbours for years. Internationally, Neighbours is easily more popular. Anyway, Sara West (aka Cara Varga-Murphy) has been posting a series of beautiful behind the scenes shots of the Neighbours cast and production team in recent weeks. She has celebrated the contributions of each individual to the collective effort, and it really highlights what is about to lost. Well worth checking out! https://www.instagram.com/sarajwest/?hl=en

Very interesting interview from Jason Herbison as the last week of production begins: https://tvtonight.com.au/2025/07/deja-vu-as-neighbours-winds-down-but-with-love-and-gratitude.html

I do think there's room for optimism, especially with Amazon making enough new episodes to last until December. There's still time for the various players to get their ducks in a row. Guess we'll know soon enough!

Maybe I'm still in denial, but nothing about Neighbours' ongoing social media output gives the vibe of a show that's ending. In today's 'Roundup' video, Alan Fletcher referenced that production finishes in five weeks, but in all the show's posts the cast are as jovial and lighthearted as ever. Remarkably so for people who are about to lose their jobs. Perhaps they're just putting a brave face on things, and I know they approached the previous axing with a positive attitude. Maybe putting an upbeat face on things is a collective way of showing potential backers that there's still life in the show? Or is it possible that they already know the show has been saved, and we'll get an announcement next month when filming wraps and the show 'rests'? Does any of that make sense?!

A very good week for male eye candy on GH. New Michael is beautiful, Curtis's arms looked great in that polo shirt, Cody looks even more handsome with his new haircut AND we got Marco in swim shorts rocking his lovely bod and chest fur. 🔥

Hopefully!

Wonderful news! But us international fans are still waiting for BTG to be made available outside the US. (Really hoped this would happen from the start).

Despite having never watched Ryan's Hope, I read Tom Lisanti's book recently as I'm fascinated by behind the scenes stories of soap production. A really enjoyable read, which gave a good sense of the show and New York at that time. I have to say though, that the vitriol regarding the quality (or lack thereof) of Loving only makes me want to watch that show even more! (It's on my list anyway as I've never seen The Loving Murders).

I may be wrong, but in the confrontation scene between Sonny and Ava last week before Sonny collapsed, I'm sure I clocked MB looking at a teleprompter twice.

Thanks, yes I do know a couple and plan to ask them, but just wondered if there are any known figures in the industry and thought SON may know.

Does anybody know if there are agents who specialise in representing daytime writers, please?

I know I've posted lots of stories from TV Tonight, but now bigwigs from across the Australian screen industry have praised and recognised Neighbours for its impact as it hits 40. Surely somebody will save it?! https://tvtonight.com.au/2025/03/neighbours-at-40-everyone-working-in-australian-television-today-owes-you-a-debt-of-gratitude.html

It's an excellent interview isn't it. Just hope someone with clout is listening. Absolutely. Can't imagine how galling it must be for the cast when Aussies say "Is that still on?"

Stefan Dennis has had enough, rightly so. https://tvtonight.com.au/2025/03/neighbours-at-40-stefan-dennisim-not-afraid-to-say-anything-anymore.html

I agree, @Liberty City As the spokesperson for the show, JH must have permission/guidance from Fremantle Media to use language such as 'this chapter' and 'we'd love to see it continue.' That has to be intentional, and am sure there's several discussions ongoing behind the scenes as we speak.

An interesting, in depth interview with Jason Herbison here. Definitely sounds like the show's not over, IMO: https://tvtonight.com.au/2025/03/neighbours-at-40-a-tv-milestone-soapie-twists-and-a-sense-of-deja-vu.html

Howling at this, btw! Comment of the week for me.