More than 40 years after it first aired, the final credits will roll on the iconic soap Neighbours — again.
In fine soap opera tradition, the long-running show survived being axed in the 1980s and again in 2022, but this time, it is different.
The studio in Melbourne's eastern suburbs has been dismantled, the props and costumes donated to local op shops, and, in the world of the show, Ramsay Street itself is set to be destroyed to make way for a freeway (barring any last-minute interventions).
Of course, nothing is final. Just ask Harold Bishop, who was swept out to sea, only to return years later with amnesia.
Jackie Woodburne played Susan Kennedy for more than 30 years, and said watching the final weeks go to air has been "heartbreaking".
"There were so many more stories to tell; it's such a loss," she said.
"This time around, I think our impetus was just to make sure we told the best stories we could, we honoured the fans, the cast, the crew and everyone who ever appeared on the show and bring it home in a blaze of glory — fingers crossed we did that."
She hinted at what fans have been hoping — that the ending has been left open so the show could return in some shorter format, although not on Ramsay Street.
"The show ends with a sense of hope," she said.
The show that sparked the careers of Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Margot Robbie and Guy Pearce also supported many more professionals behind the camera, including writers, directors, lighting and costume technicians.
Woodburne hopes the show is remembered as part of the Australian TV landscape.
"I think as just a touchstone to lives, as something that people will be able to hark back to, and they'll always associate it with times in their lives, stories that will run parallel to them in things that were happening for them," she said.
British fans mourn the end
Neighbours has certainly been a touchstone for Ben Fenlon, one half of the Neighbours podcast, NeighBens.
"The moment I came out to my mum was because of a conversation started by an episode of Neighbours, where someone was questioning their sexuality," he said, referring to a 2006 storyline with Rosie Cammeniti and her housemate, Pepper.
"There's all these moments in my life I can connect to the show, and it's just been a comfort my whole life."
He also fondly remembers the 1987 wedding between Scott and Charlene, which was watched by 20 million viewers in the UK.
"One of my early memories is walking to school with all the mums and my friends from primary school and everyone was talking about Scott and Charlene's wedding," he said.
"All the generations watched that episode in the UK and everyone was talking about it."
His podcast co-host, Ben Bone, said that love for the show remained.
He was in the audience for Neighbours' 40th anniversary tour in the UK earlier this year.
"The whole vibe of that tour, from everyone you spoke to was, 'what is going to happen, is it going to get renewed?' — everyone really cares," he said.
Fans love the mix of stories
Co-host on the Australian Neighbours podcast, NeighBuzz, CJ Hogan, said fans were grieving.
"I feel like I'm related to Karl and Suse," she said.
"It's like saying goodbye, it's like a funeral, we're saying goodbye to someone who's been there in our living rooms, in our phones, every weeknight for most weeks of the year for 40 years."
She said what had kept fans loyal for so long was the mix of storylines, including Rob Mills as the villainous Finn Kelly, trying to murder Susan on a remote island, and then drowning in a shallow grave he had dug for her.
"All of that wild stuff is paired with, 'do Karl and Susan change super companies?'" she said.
"It's crazy and it's mundane in the same 22 minutes, and that's what I'll miss and that's what I love."
Hogan said the show's final storyline, where characters are either fighting to save Ramsay Street from the freeway or moving on, was a way for fans to understand the end of the show.
"We realised it's a way of explaining how the fans feel — we're closing the street, we're destroying it, we're putting a freeway on it," she said.
For TV historian and Neighbours fan Andrew Mercado, Neighbours will leave an important cultural legacy.
"I think Neighbours will be remembered as a show that took Australian suburbia to the world," he said.
"People living in really cold climates in the northern hemisphere used to look at us with these giant backyards and swimming pools and think, 'wow, Australia is beautiful.'"
But Mercado said the show's demise was horrible because of what its loss meant to the industry.
"I think as a training facility it can't be beat, the amount of actors that it's trained and the amount of technicians behind the scenes," he said.
"It's really been a TV school for nearly 40 years now."
