The lights go out on Ramsay Street as Neighbours wraps after 9363 episodes

At a little after 7pm last night, the lights were switched off for the last time in the sound stages at the Nunawading television studios that have been home to the soap Neighbours for four decades.

As darkness fell, after 9363 half-hour episodes – the last 460 produced under the banner of streaming giant Amazon, who saved the show after its cancellation in 2022 – it marked the end of an era for Australian television and for an iconic Melbourne institution.

Actors Alan Fletcher (left) and Stefan Dennis on the set of Neighbours on the final day of filming.Credit: Allena Tran/Fremantle

Those studios, in the city’s eastern suburbs, have been home to some of the best-loved television shows in Australian history, including The Go!! Show, where Olivia Newton-John made her debut, soaps such as Prisoner and The Box, the talk show Rove, glorious failures such as Holiday Island and, of course, Neighbours.

Actor Stefan Dennis, 66, who plays property developer Paul Robinson and cut his acting teeth in the studios in Prisoner before returning later to become the enduring stars of Neighbours, acknowledges he’s “probably the oldest inhabitant” of the studios.

As for saying goodbye for a second, and now seemingly final time, Dennis said he had mixed emotions. “At the moment I’m fine, I’m just looking at it as another filming day, and that’s what it is,” he said on the set yesterday.

“We did this two years ago, and it’s a different vibe saying goodbye to the show this time,” he added. “It’s not as sad, it’s happier for me than it is sad. Happy that I have had this. It’s not just a show to me, it’s been an era for me, it’s been a great portion of my life.”

Since its premiere on March 18, 1985, the goings-on at the not-as-quiet-as-it-seemed Ramsay Street, Erinsborough have – mostly – captivated the national conversation with births, deaths, marriages and all manner of dramatic twists and turns in between.

But in the end, like television itself, Neighbours has had to navigate the choppy waters of declining Australian audience and changing business models. Axed two years ago, it was saved by the streaming platform Amazon when it saw an opportunity to invest in Australian drama.

And it was a robust revival: new cast members, rejuvenated storylines and a nomination for best daytime drama at America’s Daytime Emmy Awards. But with more shifts on the TV landscape and diminishing pressure from the Australian government to compel streaming platforms to invest in local drama, a shadow fell again across Australia’s most beloved cul-de-sac.

In February, Amazon confirmed it would not renew the series past its commitment for 2025. A month later, on March 18, the show marked a bittersweet 40th anniversary.

Yesterday, on the final day of filming, the mood on set was quietly upbeat. There were smiles and hugs. But there was an ever-present sense that this really is the end. Even if the series is thrown a new lifeline somehow, its life at Nunawading Studios is over.

The studio side, once a remote location but overrun in the intervening decades with Melbourne’s suburbia, will be redeveloped. One part, the red-brick cube remembered largely as the exterior of Wentworth Detention Centre in Prisoner, is protected as a historical site.

Once the company of actors and production craftspeople leave, said Rebekah Elmaloglou, who plays Terese Willis, the building will have to reckon with some artistic ghosts.

“There’s a lot left behind,” she said. “There’s such an essence here. You feel it when you walk into the studio. I’ve been here for 12 years and I feel like I was born here. It’s so strange saying goodbye.”

The final episode is directed by actor-turned-director Scott Major, known to TV audiences as Peter Rivers from Heartbreak High and Lucas Fitzgerald from Neighbours. His career trajectory from acting to one of Australia’s leading TV directors is a demonstration of what we will lose with the end of Neighbours, he says.

“I can’t even begin to explain how significant that is,” Major said. “I was an actor on this show and I did a [directing] internship and I’ve been directing here for 12 years. I have trained eight or nine directors myself.

“I’m really concerned about the next generation,” Major said. “We used to have the ABC to train people up. We used to have Crawfords. This was the last bastion of professional on-set training left in Victoria, certainly. We’re an island in that way. It’s a huge loss for actors, for technicians and for the industry as a whole.”

Episode 9363 of Neighbours will air in December. The show’s producer, Jason Herbison, said it would bring the multi-generational story of Ramsay Street to a close, but in a way that might potentially point to the future. No lifeline for the show exists at present, but in an era of sequels, prequels and reboots, in five or 10 years’ time, there is always a possibility.

“We have ended it in a way that is celebratory of the show and the heritage and the history, but it is different this time around,” Herbison said. “And I think the key thing is that while it does celebrate that heritage, it is also a little bit forward-looking.”

Dealing with what is effectively the show’s third cancellation – the first, in its infancy in 1985, the second three years ago, and now – is tough, Herbison said. But coupled with closing down the Fremantle offices on the site, it has been particularly emotional.

“We are packing up this time, it all feels more imminent,” he said. “But the five-year question? It could be anything. You just have to look around and see all the ways TV shows are reinvented. We are ending the show in a way that teases all those possibilities.”

The final episode of Neighbours will air on Amazon and Ten on December 11.

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