Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy.
I’ll start with a confession – I’m writing this before seeing Friday’s episode, so if any of this seems to be grossly inaccurate, or I’ve not mentioned a big story line which cropped up on Friday, that’s why. Sometimes Neighbours has to take second place to jumping in the car to go and annoy your big brother for the weekend.
Anyway, on to last week’s UK round-up, for episodes 8385 -8389.
Russell Brand’s Baffling Cameo
Neighbours loves a strange celebrity cameo appearance, and we had the dubious honor of being treated to one of the strangest ones yet when Russell Brand randomly wandered into Harold’s. He talked a load of incomprehensible nonsense at Toadie, vaguely fat-shamed him for eating a muffin and then gave him a free book about addiction, which actually exists, and was clearly the reason for this very odd guest spot. I don’t think I will be buying it, especially if it reads anything like his Neighbours dialogue.
Russell Brand randomly wandered into Harold’s. Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy.
Everyone Was Very Quick to Believe Heather
If a convicted con-artist well-known for having a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock told you that her daughter had poisoned her twin sister and escaped from prison and that the wrong sister was now banged up, would you be as quick to believe her as the guards were? I know Dee has supposedly got a scar that Andrea doesn’t have, but I think if Heather had come up to me and fed me that story, I’d have told her to shut up and sent her back to her cell for a lie-down.
I was pretty excited about this whole plot because I thought it would be fun, but I was disappointed it all got resolved so quickly, I think they missed an opportunity for some really juicy scenes of Dee waking up and finding herself to be locked up in prison. The final “showdown”, and I’m using that term very loosely, at the school was also a bit of a damp squib. Heather dithered for a bit, Andrea ran about two meters before Levi caught her, and it was all resolved quicker than you could say “evil twin”. It was hardly unmissable drama in the end. Unless there’s going to be yet another chapter to the whole Dee/Andrea saga, then it’s left me with a bit of a feeling of “Is that it?”.
Moments before the not-so-dramatic showdown. Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy.
Another Canning in Town
As with most new characters on Neighbours, the new Canning in town looks set to ruffle a few feathers, with Bea taking an immediate dislike to him when they met. Does that mean he’s going to be her new love interest? I suspect it does. This always happens with newbies on the street though – think Hendrix and Roxy – they arrive, they rub everyone up the wrong way for a while, and then eventually they become quite likable and everyone forgets that they ever got on their nerves. Even his own grandma doesn’t seem that sold on him for some reason, but Levi did manage to rugby tackle Andrea to the ground, so he surely has to earn some Brownie points for that. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that he’s quite easy on the eye either.
Oh, hi there. Photo: © Channel 5. Source: Digital Spy.
Aaron and David Continue To Be a Disaster
I had a slight beef with Aaron and David getting approved as foster parents and then immediately losing their foster child as a plot device, then this week it happened again! They lost their foster child twice in two weeks! I don’t even lose my car keys this often, and they’re a good deal smaller than a whole human teenager. Would it be too much to ask for gay foster parents to actually just turn out to be really great foster parents without losing their child once a week? Are they going to lose him down the back of the sofa next week? I am so exasperated by this storyline.
Paul Update
Last week, Paul wasn’t awful… or at least he hadn’t been awful up until Thursday. I can only imagine what heinous acts he got up to on Friday in order to fulfill his awfulness quota for the week…
