Neighbours vs Neighbours

GOOD THING: NEIGHBOURS
Everyone needs to watch a bit of escapist rubbish on TV now and then, and I'd rather be watching the unrealistic world of Neighbours than the far-too-realistic world of The Jeremy Kyle Show or The Wright Stuff (although other shows are available...) Unlike most people in the UK, who stopped watching Neighbours in about 1989, once the Scott & Charlene romance had resolved itself, I didn't actually begin watching until about 1992. I had been forbidden from watching it by my mum, in the belief that it would rot my brain (fair point) and I would start speaking with an Aussie twang (still hasn't happened), but at some stage I blatantly disobeyed her. And now I've been a viewer for 14 years, and know an alarming amount about the characters and storylines past and present. During my university years, I was a member of the college's unofficial Neighbours Society, where up to 50 people would shoehorn themselves into a tiny TV room in order to catch the post-lunchtime episode. The fact that Neighbours is the only show I can think of that the BBC broadcasts twice in one day must say something for it? Granted, occasionally even I get bored with it, but one of the great things about Neighbours is that you can very easily catch up - even if you turn on and find that nearly all of the characters you knew have been killed in a hideous accident. Oh, and my mum watches it quite willingly now too, when she has the time...

BAD THING: NEIGHBOURS

I can't believe I still watch Neighbours after all these years. Neither can my fiance, who regularly marvels at how a fairly intelligent person could want to watch something so banal and mindless. The thing is, I actually have to go out of my way to watch Neighbours - it involves remember to setting the VCR before I go to work, which is no mean feat at that time of the morning. Neighbours is quite brazenly awful - wooden acting, stories recycled so many times that the writers should win some sort of environmental award, and dialogue that does nothing for our image of Australians. What is also ridiculous is how a character can do something hideous and unforgiveable, and then still be considered a friendly, upstanding citizen the next week. Deaths are similarly fogotten, with the average grieving period being roughly 3 days, and there's never any attempt to explain why so-and-so's son/daughter was unable to attend their wedding or funeral (we know why - said actor refuses to return to the show, or the show is too cheap to pay them. ) They usually make do with a telegram purporting to be from the character, who has unfortunately been detained (do they still have telegrams Down Under?) Sometimes I find myself watching a particularly lame and lazy storyline and think that life really is too short. I also end up feeling sorry for some of the actors, who find themselves embroiled in the most ludicrous/lightweight/embarrassing scenarios, although by no means all of them - some of them look like they clearly deserve it. It does make me wonder, though, what I could have achieved with all of those 22 minute blocks I've instead spent watching Neighbours...