A Beloved Show Gets Another Life

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email.

In July, the ending of “Neighbours” felt definitive, recalled Sarah Mayberry, a writer for the show who has penned hundreds of episodes over 24 years.

Those who worked on Australia’s longest-running television drama had hoped for a last-minute miracle, she said. When that didn’t happen, they went through a “grieving process,” holding small farewell parties for different departments, followed by a big one on the last day of filming.

Just months later, in a twist that wouldn’t be out of place in the show, production company Fremantle announced that it had secured Amazon as a partner to revive “Neighbours.” The new series will start filming in Australia next year, the company said Thursday, and will stream in the United States and Britain on Amazon’s free-to-view streaming platform, Freevee. In Australia, it will be broadcast on Network Ten and streamed on Amazon Prime.

“We look forward to immersing the audience in new Ramsay Street experiences,” Lauren Anderson, head of original content and programming at Amazon Studios, said in a statement.

Like others who worked on the show, Ms. Mayberry learned the news through the media.

“Everyone’s still a bit gob-smacked,” she said, but added that they were all “excited and relieved and grateful that this funny, quirky show gets another life.”

The show’s revival speaks to its enduring appeal, both in Australia and overseas. In Britain, which accounted for the majority of its viewers, it offered escapism in the form of a kind, uncontroversial vision of Australian life.