The Neighbours Finale Trailer Feels Like a Lost Twin Peaks Episode
Des! Harold! Bouncer! Neighbours has not held back with this melodramatic grief-extravaganza announcing the series finale air date.
Don’t expect brave faces or a breezy goodbye, says the official Neighbours finale trailer, we’re about to wring every last drop of wet nostalgia from our last outing as Australia’s longest-running soap opera. And good on them. Now’s not the time for understatement, now’s the time for garment-rending grief and aching nostalgia, which is exactly what this three and a half minute compilation provides.
To a haunting, reverb-y song about a reluctant break-up, the trailer takes us through Neighbours past and present. It starts sweet in the early days, with Lou Carpenter larking about with a clapperboard, Harold and Madge’s post-amnesia reunion, Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, and more weddings than a Moonie ceremony. And then it gets sexy, and then it gets dangerous. Explosions! Murder! Violence! Fires! Plane Crashes! Horse-riding accidents! Natural Disasters! Stefan Dennis!
Next – accompanied by the sad piano version of the theme song – come the deaths. Oh, the deaths. Helen Daniels, Jim Robinson, Des’ Daphne, Kerry at the duck shoot… before an iconic shot of Harold Bishop’s glasses being splashed by the uncaring ocean on a rocky outcrop, and at 3:02, a poignant cameo from who else but Bouncer the dog, sadness in his eyes. The intensity, melodrama and emotional music all add up to quite the compilation.
There’s plenty missing, as you’d expect from an attempt to boil 37 years and 8,903 episodes into less than the time it takes to boil an egg, but it’s a representative sample, told with all the emotional mastery of a toddler who’s dropped his ice lolly. This trailer’s an invitation to feel sad and let the feelings spill. It’s the end of an era. Time to say goodbye.
Fans can do that on Peach and 10 Peach in Australia when what’s being billed as the “history-making” finale airs on Thursday the 28th of July. In the UK, the episode will be shown on Channel 5 (UPDATED 14.00 1st July) one day later on Friday the 29th of July. See the Tweet here:
The finale extravaganza will be divided into three new episodes, with the third-to-last airing in the usual lunchtime and teatime slot, and then a double-bill airing at 9pm. A host of big stars who made their name on the soap will be returning to pay their respects, including Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan and many more. And on the basis of this trailer, it won’t be a small affair. Hankies at the ready.
See the Neighbours finale on Channel 5 on Monday the 1st of August.
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Louisa Mellor is the Den of Geek UK TV Editor. She has written about TV, film and books for Den of Geek since 2010, and for…