So what now for Neighbours?
The antipodean soap opera - which has run for 37 years - has been an institution to generations of Brits, influencing everything from what we wear to how we speak.
It’s due to be dropped from the Channel 5 schedule this summer and looks set to end for good unless another channel steps in.
As a lifelong Neighbours fan, I find this pretty devastating. And I’m not the only one.
No doubt the decision came as a huge shock to the cast just weeks after a new look Neighbours, with new opening credits and revamped sets, was unveiled for 2022.
An emotional Jackie Woodburne, who has played Susan Kennedy for over two decades, told Network 10's The Project how cast members were in tears when they met to discuss plans on Monday.
“We’re all very emotional about it all,” she said. “We’re all so determined to bring this show home as best we can.”
Neighbours popularity has never really waned. It consistently pulls in round 1.5 million viewers - significantly more than Channel 4’s Hollyoaks and Home and Away, which will remain on Channel 5.
And it’s become so ingrained in British teatime culture that even those who no longer watch still have a fondness for the soap.
Only a few months ago, Scott Mills presented a three-hour long Neighbours tribute show on BBC Radio 2 in which he reunited Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Ian Smith and Anne Charleston (Scott, Charlene, Harold and Madge).
It sparked nostalgia for millions of listeners. But the show has always been about more than just a trip down memory lane.
Vaya Pashos, who runs the brilliant Neighbuzz podcast for fans of the show, says Neighbours is more than just a soap to many of us.
“It works best when they slide in topical issues around the day-to-day hijinks,” she says.
“Like Paige getting so excited by University culture that she and her mum freed the nipple in the Lassiters complex.
“Or Susan Kennedy schooling Hendrix on enthusiastic consent at the school dance.
“But there are also moments that resonate beyond a half-hour of entertainment - like Sonya wanting to show her daughter examples of strong female role models before she died. That cuts to the core.
“And it goes to show that just because soap is made quickly, doesn't mean it's not art.”
Neighbours can of course be extremely poignant.
When Madge died I was so devastated, that classmates paid tribute to her several times in my high school leaving book as if she was a real person.
And Sonya’s ovarian cancer storyline was so beautifully handled by actress Eve Morey that it earned her a Logie nomination.
But at its core there is a lightness that peppers the show each day which is almost inimitable.
Lou Carpenter chopping off Toadie’s famous mullet springs to mind. As do Karl’s relentless attempts to inflict his music on his friends and family.
Neighbours also makes efforts to better reflect modern Australia. In 2019 the show’s first first trans character, Mackenzie Hargreaves, played by trans actress Georgie Stone, was introduced.
And in 2018 the soap aired the first same-sex wedding ever to be screened on Australian television, which saw the grooms walk down the aisle to Kylie and Jason’s hit ‘Especially For You’.
There have been British guest stars, including Corrie’s Ryan Thomas, Denise Van Outen, Sophie Ellis Bextor and Amanda Holden.
And executive producer Jason Herbison - a former TV critic and Neighbours writer - has also made efforts to bring heritage characters back, including Plain Jane Superbrain, the fiery Izzy Hoyland and Aussie battler Des Clarke.
Of course some of the stories are quite barmy.
In one particularly dangerous year for the residents of Erinsborough, Toadie became temporarily paralysed after grabbing a flyaway bouncy castle, and Kyle Canning went blind from looking at the sun too long during an eclipse.
Not everyone will be au fait with the most recent narratives involving baby swapping, rooftop falls and amnesia-based murder, but take my word for it - they’ve all been great.
A week-long late night series, dramatically titled Neighbours: Endgame, involved three deaths and five weddings.
While another arc lasting years involved a doppelganger posing as Toadie’s beloved first wife Dee Bliss - thought to have plummeted to her death on their wedding day.
But alongside the extreme drama are day to day stories that resonate. Stories about addiction, health, sexuality and family rifts.
Terese Willis’ battle with alcohol and Chloe Brennan’s Huntington’s diagnosis have been particularly well handled.
Tackling these complex storylines each day provides actors with a unique training ground - and of course Margot Robbie, Guy Pearce and Kylie Minogue are among those who have flourished since.
In a fascinating podcast , former cast member Gemma Pranita - who played Jade Mitchell - explains how working on the show gave her a leg up to Hollywood.
The body of work she built up on Neighbours allowed her to apply for a US acting visa and the money she saved from her regular income on the soap funded her life as a jobbing actor.
It’s not an easy life, but it’s one that may become increasingly less possible for Australian actors if Neighbours ends for good.
The wider television industry also owes a debt to Neighbours after two years of pandemic uncertainty.
When production ground to halt, it was the Neighbours team who first got cameras rolling again, providing a ‘no kissing and no hand holding’ template for soaps across the world .
Some have even argued that Neighbours has had an influence on matters beyond the film and TV industry.
Academic Richard Carr argues in one paper that Neighbours’ appeal “community focussed, friendly, classless, unthreatening, a mixed economy, and in some ways small ‘c’ conservative” was the platform the Labour Party needed to convince voters it failed to reach in the 80s and early 90s.
Of course for me, the appeal has always been escapism.
The palm tree-filled Lassiters complex always seemed like paradise compared with the rainy cobbles of Weatherfield.
Erinsborough is a happier world where the first whiff of bad news is accompanied by a comforting casserole, where bikinis are worn in mid-winter and where a working day consists of waltzing around the Lassiters lake drinking coffee.
If the show does end for good, the fans will of course be gutted.
Like all soaps there is a community around Neighbours that is driven by the warmth of those characters, old and new, who greet us each day.
For now, there is still hope of a reprieve.
A petition is doing the rounds, the #SaveNeighbours hashtag is still trending and the stars are appealing for a ‘hero’ to take it on.
This cultural icon, which has a shiny new look and modern storylines, would surely be at home on Channel 4, ITV or the BBC.
In the 80s, former BBC1 controller Michael Grade upgraded Neighbours to a tea time slot, resulting in a massive ratings boost, after his daughter was caught watching the show at school. Could a similar approach work today?
With viewing habits now very different, surely a streaming service such as BritBox, or a youth channel like the newly relaunched BBC3 would welcome Neighbours’ ready made 1million+ audience.
We live in hope.
