Soap operas come and go, but then there's Neighbours. Last year, after 37 years on the air in Australia, loyal viewers bid a tearful farewell to the residents of Ramsey Street, set in the fictional Melbourne suburb of Erinsborough, in what they believed was a fitting series finale. Many future international superstars who all received their break on the series, like Margot Robbie, Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce, and Natalie Imbruglia, returned to pay homage and respects, either in person or through video messages cleverly worked into the storyline. However, a funny thing happened after the sets were dismantled, and the dust had settled -- Amazon Studios decided that Neighbours wasn't quite ready to be retired. Believe it or not, it's not the first time this has happened to the series.
Streaming services giving new life to canceled series is nothing new. Shows like Lucifer (from Fox to Netflix), Designated Survivor (from ABC to Netflix), and Criminal Minds (on Paramount+ three years after CBS pulled the plug) have all been resurrected. Most recently, on the linear programming side, All Rise found a new home at OWN after being canceled by CBS, and the list goes on. For Neighbours, the fact that it remained a viable international IP for the producing company Fremantle made it a perfect candidate for CPR.
Beginning its run in 1985 on Australia's 7 Network, the show was canceled after an uninspired opening. Soon after, it was picked up by rival Network 10, and little did they know that when a retooled version debuted in 1986, it would go on to become the longest-running drama series in Australian television history. Aussies became enamored with the lives and loves of its characters, and that soon went global as 60 countries made it a cultural phenomenon. England, in particular, embraced the series, where in the mid to late 1980s, it aired twice a day to a viewership of over 21 million. The cast became so revered that in 1988, the whole cast was flown over to appear at the annual Royal Variety Performance for Queen Elizabeth II to sing the theme song.
During its 37-year run, the show became a rite of passage for many working Australian actors. Some would take Hollywood by storm, while others parlayed their onscreen popularity into music careers. Kylie Minogue launched a successful music career and became one of the highest-selling musical artists of all time. Natalie Imbruglia garnered huge chart success in the U.S. with her 1997 single "Torn."
Cast members would come and go, and in 1993, after eight years portraying Ramsey Street patriarch Jim Robinson, Alan Dale, one of the show's original cast members, became one of the first to start the U.S. Neighbours invasion, landing television roles on The O.C., Ugly Betty, Lost, and most recently The CW's Dynasty reboot. It was rumored that a pay dispute saw him leave the show, but when I spoke with him some years ago about it, he had a very different story. "On that show, if you asked for a chair on location so you didn't have to sit in the gutter, they called it my ego," he revealed frankly. "My experience on Neighbours was awful. But Stefan Dennis (who remains a current cast member), who played my son, went back after a few years in England. I was thrilled for him because as an actor, how do you make a living? I'm grateful that I'm doing it here, and that it worked out for me."
Thanks to her portrayal of Barbie in the movie of the same name, Margot Robbie is currently one of Hollywood's biggest names. Not only did she set record box office receipts, but as a producer, she also helped set records for female filmmakers. Long before she became a big-screen fashionista, Robbie portrayed small-screen fashionista Donna Freeman for a total of 327 episodes, leaving the series in 2011. Five days after leaving the series, she hopped on a plane to LA, and while the rest is history, she remains grateful for the schooling she received on the set. "Neighbours is a fantastic training ground," she told me while promoting the ABC series Pan Am. "It really prepares you!
"I walked off that set knowing I would never have a job that difficult ever again," she added. "It's very demanding, as you film an episode a day, and it's on all year round, with no breaks. "It's insane by filming standards, but I wanted to learn everything I could and grasp everything I could while becoming financially set up so I could come here. Should I have to be here for a couple of years before getting a job, I could afford it. Luckily, I didn't have to wait a few years and kept saving."
Neighbours originally made its U.S. debut back in 1991 on KCOP-TV (Los Angeles), and after making little impact, it was shuffled to a host of other networks, including WWOR-TV (New York), before being retired. In 2004, the Oxygen Network tried it before dropping it. Neighbours lay dormant in the U.S. for a further 10 years until Hulu revived it in 2014, all the while retaining audiences elsewhere in the world.
Despite international adulation, Neighbours remained the little show that could in America. Now, with Amazon Freevee behind it, it may finally become the show that did. In anticipation of the September 18 reboot release, Freevee has previous seasons and select episodes from the series' 37-year history available for streaming. The reboot will introduce many returning original cast members to America, alongside some familiar faces like guest stars Guy Pearce (reprising his role of Mike Young) and former The O.C. star Mischa Barton.
Neighbours premieres exclusively, Monday, September 18, on Amazon Freevee.
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