With a little understanding
It was raining this weekend. As grey droplets fell from black clouds and smeared themselves all over God's bounty, I let forth a heavy sigh and cast a moody gaze out of the window. To passers-by below I imagine I looked like a moody writer in a moody French film. The subtitles would flash on the screen. "Sacre bleu!", they read, "j'ai le Seasonal Affective Disorder". The short, grim days and long nights had taken their toll. My melancholy heart clanged like a lone church bell. In desperation, I turned to the television. The idiot's lantern was sure to provide a distraction on this rain-soaked Saturday afternoon. Click.
The bastard TV must have been left on Channel 4, because the first face that appeared on screen offered a distraction of entirely the wrong sort: John McCririck, who couldn't be any more of an arsehole if his mother had fed him nothing but arsehole biscuits throughout his childhood. As the fat breast-obsessed egomaniac stood in the drizzle at Kempton Park rambling on about ponies and doing his weird Big Fish Little Fish Cardboard Box dance, my heart sank like a lead weight. Or a lone church bell that had been unceremoniously ripped out of its tower and thrown into a lake. The immortal anguish of the human soul has many metaphors.
I flicked on a channel. Suddenly, the screen lit up with a luxuriant yellow that was so striking it temporarily blinded me. Could it be? It was! Sunshine! And in that split second, all was right with the world. "What's this then?" I said, just like the kid in the Green Giant sweetcorn advert. It only took a moment to sink in. The lilting inflections...the pained expressions...a mention of "chooks"...Neighbours! On a Saturday? In Amy Winehouse's words: what kind of fuckery is this?
Then I remembered. It's on five now. And there's an omnibus. So I sat there, and watched the whole thing - the first time I've seen Neighbours on five. Friends has assured me that despite the inevitable ad break, nothing had changed; it was virtually indistinguishable from its BBC incarnation. Well, they were wrong, and that is the last time I will ever trust another human being. This Brave New Neighbours has been the subject of many earth-shattering changes, perhaps most significantly demonstrated by the fact that Zeke Kinski is now attending "dance parties" (whatever they are).
"Leave the talking to me," he assured Rachel as they were walking home from school, conveniently forgetting that a couple of years ago he was a selective mute, and if we'd left the talking to him then Martians would have colonised Erinsborough, Alan Fletcher would be playing Penguin Student Union bars in Antarctica, and Charlie Hoyland would have grown into an old man and expired of natural causes. Rachel, meanwhile, is busy having her hymen obliterated by some dashing young schoolteacher, whilst at the same time finding herself blackmailed by a 15-year-old reincarnation of Izzy, who Karl will probably see fit to sleep with before long. Oh, and Susan's recovering from a two-week bout of MS. Very nasty, but she's over the worst.
And Libby! Libby's back. I remember when she was Rachel's age, nearly getting raped by some jock on the golden sands of Erinsborough beach. This scene gave me such prepubescent thrills it has left me a chronic misogynist in adult life, so it's nice to see her and be reminded of what a complete bastard I am. Her bizarre affinity for men with the same hairstyle as her is still apparent - Darren is in tow, but he appears to have lost his ute - and she's brought her son Ben with her, who is an exact miniature replica of an investment banker from the 1950s.
What's even more baffling is that Darren is still on speaking terms with Karl, a midlife crisis in a tank top and the reason that Darren is such a dissolute orphan today. When Cheryl's life lay festering in the great lavatory cistern that is the universe, Karl stepped forward and firmly pulled the chain. Has Darren forgotten this? It appears so, as he coos pleasantly at Karl and Susan and they coo pleasantly back, supporting his efforts to win back their daughter despite the fact that he seems to have engaged in sexual congress with every woman in Queensland while he's been away. I remember when Darren was a nihilistic psychopath who would defile Libby for ever, and Karl was a murderer who went round knocking off people's mums with his magic bag of drugs. The times, as Bob Dylan sang, are a-changin'.
It seems that Libby is sticking around, so the most obvious route to take now is that of a full-scale Kennedy reunion. I'm sure there'll be a character or two leaving soon, so why not get the rest of the family in to replace them? After all, Jesse Spencer is currently playing Billy in House, so a return to Ramsay Street shouldn't be too taxing for him. Remember back in the hazy days of the mid-nineties, where if a man was called Jesse every woman on earth would automatically fancy him? Good times. And Mal's post-Neighbours career as a doberman seems to have stalled, so let's give him a shot too. Sometimes if you want to move forward it is necessary to move back.
Elsewhere, some things are reassuringly familiar. Toadie is still the cuckoo in the nest. Janae and Ned are still in a butch/femme lesbian relationship (Ned is the femme). Ringo is still made out of plasticine. Elle still hasn't blinked. But the prevailing tone in Neighbours is one of change. Look at how everyone is part of a family again (with the exception of Darren, the dissolute orphan) - even Paul Robinson, who used to be on heat so often the female residents of Ramsay Street swore blind that he'd never lost that leg. Neighbours is returning to the glorious family values that characterised its heyday. They've clearly realised that making the show like Footballers Wives with added nymphomania wasn't going to work. So what we have now is a nostalgic Neighbours, attempting to recapture its own vibrant past.
Even the presentation is different: it's now filmed through some glossy cinematic filter, which makes you feel like you're watching Schindler's List every time it comes on. Gone is the whimsical incidental music, replaced by atmospheric fades which turn the show into an arthouse-style sequence of vignettes. Of course, this injection of youthful vigour could turn out to be the televisual equivalent of Leslie Ash's lips, and sooner or later the show will begin to swell and bloat and terrify small children. But for now it is in a happy place, and two and a half hours of Neighbours on a Saturday afternoon is perfect for overcoming the tumultuous psychological upheaval that comes with the changing of the seasons. It's even educational! Did you know that Australians celebrate Christmas in summer? Those crazy bastards.