Is it good news? It is for the cast, obviously, who won’t have to rely solely on UK panto roles and Strictly Come Dancing to pay the bills. It’s also good news for fans of cancelled shows everywhere crossing their fingers for resurrection. (Come on, The OA, we just have to believe.) For viewers though, it feels like… medium news, a bit like finding out the family pet you buried months earlier has come back to life. Obviously ‘hooray’ but also, Rover is still pretty old and smelly, he probably won’t live that much longer and you did spend all that time and money on the funeral and that memorial bench. This isn’t the first time Neighbours has reneged on a goodbye. The run-up to the trumpeted finale saw almost every family on Ramsay Street choose to up sticks and move on. The cul-de-sac became a sea of For Sale signs and Susan Kennedy’s tears as the fateful day drew near when they’d all be high-tailing it out of Erinsborough. And then what should happen in the finale but everybody… changed their minds and stayed put. When Ramsay Street wasn’t levelled by yet another explosion at Lassiter’s, we should have known they’d all be back. The Freevee deal means the new series will stream there in the UK and the US, along with thousands of existing Neighbours episodes (hopefully including the very first, which opens on a very odd dream sequence). In Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the new and old episodes will be available to stream on Prime Video, while Australia Network 10 retains first-run rights for the new instalments.
