Jason Donovan has admitted he was "surprised" at the quick return of Neighbours to TV screens just months after he and Kylie Minogue agreed to return for its "final episode" last summer.
The former onscreen and offscreen couple reprised their roles as Scott and Charlene to mark the end of the long-running Aussie soap. But it has been reported Kylie and other former stars, including Hollywood actor Guy Pearce, who also returned to Ramsay Street are unhappy at the revival.
They are said to feel they were duped into returning, the Mirror reports. But appearing on an Australian radio show, Jason, 54, would only say: "To be honest with you, it was a surprise."
And he added that there were positives to the show's return on Amazon, explaining: "I think anything that provides the opportunity to keep people working and actors and producers and all those sorts of things."
Sources in Melbourne, where Neighbours was filmed, have claimed pop superstar Kylie, 54, now wondered why she had gone to the trouble of returning for a final appearance. An insider told the Mail on Sunday : "Kylie has apparently got a bit of the hump about it all.
"It's a case of why did she and others make the effort to go back. She and the others were told it was the end. She knows what she owes to Neighbours and she would have always done it, but it does all seem a little baffling."
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Pearce, 55, whose film credits include LA Confidential and The King's Speech, returned to Ramsay Street as Mike Young for what he was told would be the final three episodes. He called the initial finale "hard to watch" before saying any return to the screen would make the edition "look like a rather expensive exercise". He added: "I don't want to say waste of time. But still."
The original decision to axe Neighbours was made because the production company Fremantle and Channel 5 failed to reach a new deal.
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