If you’re young enough not to know who Bouncer the dog or Mrs. Mangel was, you probably remember Neighbors. The much-missed, long-running Australian soap ran from 1985 to 2022 and introduced us to stars like Kylie Minogue, Guy Pearce and Margot Robbie and featured a truly iconic episode where Bouncer the dog had a dreamin which the very good boy married a very good girl.
And now it’s back! But do not worry. This isn’t Neighbors Returns, a gritty reboot from Christopher Nolan in which Harold Bishop returns as a morally complex warrior, Bouncer is rabid and Mrs. Mangel is played by Tom Hardy. Though I’d be bloody wary of that. It’s a revival, and as you can see in the trailer below, it’s bringing back some very familiar faces.
The new series, Neighbours: a new chapter, will stream on Amazon’s Freevee, which is also in the Prime Video app, starting September 18, with new episodes added daily Monday through Thursday. It will be on Freevee in the UK and US, and on Prime Video in other countries including Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Many of the original cast are back for the revival, including Stefan Dennis as Paul Robinson, Alan Fletcher as Karl Kennedy, Jackie Woodburne as Susan Kennedy, Ryan Moloney as Toadie Rebecchi, Rebekah Elmaloglou as Terese Willis, Ian Smith as Harold Bishop and Tim Kano . as Leo Tanaka. And Mischa Barton joins the cast, playing a newcomer from America who apparently isn’t who she appears to be. If you’re sharp, you’ll see her and Guy Pearce in the teaser trailer above.
Can’t wait until September for some shaky action? Amazon Freevee has also launched two series-themed channels: Neighbors – Looking Back and Best of Neighbors. As you can tell from the names, both channels run reruns of the original show – and the Best Of channel shows reruns from different seasons at different times of the day.