Finally catching up since I've fallen so behind... I'm pre-40th anniversary celebration.

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?!

45 minutes ago, Adamski said:

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?!

When the announcement was first made, I did wonder if other plans were in the works. I guess we can always keep hoping, especially as the show has a small core cast.

22 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

When the announcement was first made, I did wonder if other plans were in the works. I guess we can always keep hoping, especially as the show has a small core cast.

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! 

Interview with Jason Herbison about the (latest) end of Neighbours. The most interesting part for me was learning why Felix, one of the high points of the revival for me, had such an abrupt exit (the actor was very busy, apparently).

https://www.backtothebay.net/news/2025/06/07/neighbours-executive-producer-discusses-the-shows-final-months/

I think it was obvious that Felix was intended to be a regular character from the get-go. The set up of him being JJ’s bio dad and the conflict that brought was evident for long term story. It also looked obvious that Felix was meant to fill the void left by Wendy during her break, which never transpired. 

I think TPTB had a lot to juggle BTS from the get-go of the revival with cast having other commitments, and then actors not able to commit, then Ian Smith’s health issues… that’s a lot of moving parts to pivot on the hop. 

Xavier Molyneux (Byron) has already booked the lead in the Amazon series Bloodaxe.

On 6/27/2025 at 4:30 AM, Ben said:

I think it was obvious that Felix was intended to be a regular character from the get-go. The set up of him being JJ’s bio dad and the conflict that brought was evident for long term story. It also looked obvious that Felix was meant to fill the void left by Wendy during her break, which never transpired. 

I think TPTB had a lot to juggle BTS from the get-go of the revival with cast having other commitments, and then actors not able to commit, then Ian Smith’s health issues… that’s a lot of moving parts to pivot on the hop. 

I do wonder what the full plans would have been. Would he have been paired with Holly? Would Cara have had his child? 

I agree that the commitments were big issues...it has only been in the last few months that Susan and Karl haven't felt like part-time characters for me, and Holly never really recovered from their absence. 

I'm not sure how planned Wendy's break was, but the exit trashed the character and they have somehow trashed her even more since her return. The Rodwells were one of my favorite parts of the revival but now I don't feel anything and kind of hope Andrew and Wendy split up for good. 

According to Rebekah Elmaloglou (Terese), they have one week left of filming, and they supposedly filmed their final scenes on Ramsey Street this past week, as well.

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

 

There’s no big network send-off this time around, but cast and crew will share Friday away from the gaze of media. Neighbours will still go out as Australia’s longest-running drama, if somewhat disrupted, until it presumably gets superceded by its longtime serial challenger, Home & Away.
 

there was never a Challenge! No offense cause I love neighbours but Home and Away has been by far more popular than Neighbours for Decades Even during the 90‘s

2 hours ago, AMCOLTLLover said:

there was never a Challenge! No offense cause I love neighbours but Home and Away has been by far more popular than Neighbours for Decades Even during the 90‘s

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

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.”
 

https://www.instagram.com/neighbours/p/DL903ckMKk5/

Filming has officially wrapped on Neighbours.