Neighbours spoilers: From time jump to legendary character returns and brand new family
Neighbours producer Jason Herbison has teased a new season and returning characters.
The wait nearly over as the legendary Australian soap returns for a brand-new season, on September 18th.
But if you are wondering what you can expect to see this time – then we’ve got you covered.
Producer Jason Herbison revealed that there will be some new faces, as well as some fresh new drama, as well as a time jump, and of course, some of the show’s much-loved stars will return.
When questioned why a time jump was established, Jason said that it was decided fairly “early on” during discussions with Amazon.
He said: “That was decided very early on, when we were having talks with Amazon. We knew there was going to be a transmission gap, so life for the audience would have gone on and time would have passed for them too.
“It just felt like a one-off opportunity. In serial dramas, there aren’t a lot of things you can do for the first time. Of course, other soaps have done time jumps, but in our case, we were actually going to have been off air as well. We felt that it was a great opportunity – and two years felt like a really nice timeline.”
With the decision to do a time jump, that meant that some people naturally would have moved on, there were people who were “unavailable” as they had “moved on to other projects”.
Jason added: “So we had decisions to make over whether or not we might want to recast those roles, or whether or not we might move them on from the show.
“But I will say that, just because a character is not back in episode one, it doesn’t mean they may not return in the future. Certainly, there’s a lot of love from the actors who have been on the show.”
When asked how and when they decided which characters to bring back, Jason revealed that the decision was made “very quick” and that he visited the four “heritage cast” and they were “quickly on board”.
He added: “It was very, very quick. I was thinking about it in isolation for a little while, but then when we got the green light and sign-off, I went and visited the four heritage cast [Stefan Dennis, Alan Fletcher, Jackie Woodburne and Ryan Moloney]. We talked to them and very quickly got them all on board for an announcement.
“I had a bit of an idea of the other characters that I’d been thinking about, so we very quickly and urgently got on the phones and in a couple of weeks, pulled together the cast that we needed for the return.”
Jason also revealed that they will be bringing back the Rodwell family, as they didn’t get the chance to tell as many stories as they’d “hoped”.
“We did bring in the Rodwell family just before the show ended, and because the show was ending, we didn’t really get the chance to tell as many stories as we’d hoped. So we’ve got the Rodwell family back. We’ve also got a new family as well, who are great,” Jason continued.
He also hinted that there will be “wonderful new characters” and that it will give the show the “reset” it needed.
Jason said: “We’ve got wonderful new characters. I think one of the many beauties of Neighbours is that it has always been multi-generational. With this next chapter of the show, it’s starting afresh and it was a great chance as well to just reset that.
“We have our wonderful grandparent figures like Karl and Susan, we have characters like Toadie and then the new family – the parents with the kids. And then the 20-somethings, who live in a share household, and then the teenagers and then the young children. I think it’s a really nice balance of characters.”
Neighbours returns on September 18, with new episodes available for free on Amazon Freevee in the UK and US on Mondays through Thursdays.