Answer:

Key Highlights :

1. reviewers Zanna Gillespie and Greg Bruce both enjoyed the reboot of Neighbours;

2. the show has a consistent narrative;

3. the show is nostalgic and comforting;

4. the show is consistent and has a weight of 40 years of story detritus;

5. the show is popular and has a large fan base.

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     Has Neighbours Returned with Its Old Magic? Reviewers Zanna Gillespie and Greg Bruce Watch the Reboot.

     Neighbours is back from the dead, but has it still got the old magic? Reviewers Zanna Gillespie and Greg Bruce watch the return of Ramsay Street. After a year since its “final ever episode”, the beloved Australian soap opera is back with a reboot, and viewers are eager to know if it still holds the same magic. Power to the people – Amazon swooped in and the show was successfully resurrected. But with Guy Pearce’s departure and the arrival of The OC star, Mischa Barton, will Neighbours be able to maintain its consistency?

     The thing with a soap is that it’s not about the quality of each individual episode. Enjoying a soap opera is about surrendering yourself to that world and welcoming these characters into your life as your friends and enemies. It’s accepting that there are characters and storylines you love and some you hate, that some bits are brilliant and progressive and others are exceptionally dumb. The Neighbours reboot is and will be all of those things over and over and over, as long as people watch it.

     The weight of 40 years of accumulated story detritus weighs heavily upon the new Neighbours. The institutional memory needed to sustain a believable narrative about a place where so many unbelievable things have happened is enormous. The creators have to contend with substantial story hurdles, including Pearce’s departure, and their primary device for doing that has been to jump forward two years. But the thing that really is weird is the arrival of The OC star, Mischa Barton.

     The resurrection of Neighbours represents everything wrong with the entertainment industry: the seeking of a sure thing, the shameless appeal to nostalgia, the unwillingness to push on in new directions. But, as viewers sink back into the familiar rhythms of Ramsay St, they come to understand that it also represents something very right with the world: the building of long-term relationships that grow and deepen to a rich golden hue; relationships that sometimes fade and die and are sometimes resurrected, that are with us through bad times and good, that become part of the fabric of our lives.

     New episodes of Neighbours are now available on TVNZ+ from Tuesday-Friday at noon, or 5.30pm on TVNZ 2, and are streaming on Prime Video from Tuesday. Will Neighbours be able to maintain its old magic? Only time will tell.

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