Kerry Parnell: Neighbours’ finale perfects the art of not overstaying

Neighbours perfected the art of not overstaying, and instead, left on a high note. Which is one of the many reasons we’ll always remember the good parts, writes Kerry Parnell.

Nobody likes an overstayer – that person who won’t leave the party, despite you stunt-yawning and loading the dishwasher in front of them.

Knowing when it’s time to go is an art. And this week Neighbours demonstrated how to do it in style, as Ramsay St waved goodbye forever, by inviting some of its most famous former residents back for a last hurrah.

Everyone who became anyone returned for the last episode, including Scott and Charlene (Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue), Nina (Delta Goodrem), Mike (Guy Pearce), Flick (Holly Valance), Izzy (Natalie Bassingthwaighte), Beth (Natalie Imbruglia) and Donna, (Margot Robbie), who sent 37 bottles of bubbly to the set, one for each year it’s been on air.

Come on Barbie, let’s go party.

It’s amazing how many people don’t know when it’s time to go – just ask the British-overstaying-his-welcome-PM Boris Johnson, who got the boot but isn’t leaving before he’s held a massive wedding party on the premises.

Margot Robbie, Ryan Moloney and Kym Valentine as they appeared on Neighbours in 2010. Picture: Channel 10

Perhaps he’s taking the George Costanza approach and simply turning up to work, hoping everyone will forget he quit.

Still, maybe that’s the way to do it – having a last party, rather than slinking off silently. It applies whether we’re talking about the ending of a TV series, career, or frankly, life.

Ryan Moloney, Alan Fletcher, Jackie Woodburne, Angela Bishop, Ian Smith and Stefan Dennis attend the "Neighbours" finale event on June 29, 2022 in Melbourne. Picture: Sam Tabone

Go out on a high, while you can. A living wake has always got to be better than the one you don’t get an invite to.

As Susan (Jackie Woodburne) summarised in the final scenes on Thursday, “I think you have to acknowledge everything, celebrate it all. The good, the bad, because all of that makes us who we are. Everyone deserves a place in the history of Ramsay Street.”

I’d like to see Neighbours-style finales happening in all aspects of life, for example, companies having giant knees-ups instead of stealthily making half the staff redundant at 4pm on a Friday.

(In corporations all over the world employees are scared to answer the phone on Friday afternoons, which is nice). Leavers could run through a balloon arch, waving, before collecting their goodie-bags containing their severance cheques alongside a branded pen.

Ricky Gervais’ Christmas Special finale saw Tim and Dawn finally get together. Picture: Instagram

Or couples could throw divorce parties with slide-shows of their greatest relationship moments, before cheerily taking Ubers in different directions.

It has to be better than having something dragging on and on, before fizzling out with a final gasp, so that the only thing anyone remembers is how bad the ending was, not how good the preceding seasons were.

No, you want to go out on a high, like the Christmas Special finale of Ricky Gervais’ two-season The Office, when Tim and Dawn finally got together, her clutching his Secret Santa gift of oil paints, us in tears; Fleabag’s second-series ending, when Phoebe-Waller Bridge waves goodbye to the audience; or even The Sopranos, which wrapped up after six spectacular seasons with a family dinner, or … final course, depending which way you look at it. And now, Neighbours, with its sentimental celebration of all that has been before.

The end is just as important as the beginning. Just ask Stefan Dennis, who has been with Neighbours from the start.

In his immortal words, “Don’t it make you feel good.”