Fans rage as one of TV’s most iconic ever episodes is ‘ruined’ by huge change

Soap opera fans have united in fury over a huge change to one of the genre’s most iconic episodes.

We are, of course, referring to Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell’s Neighbours wedding, which aired on Australian television in 1987.

The event awarded Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue household name status, with their on-screen (and later off-screen) romance already capturing the hearts of teenagers around the globe.

When it aired on BBC One sixteen months later, a whopping 19.6 million viewers tuned in to see them walk down the aisle.

Packed-full of soapy drama and comedic moments, the episode’s secondary plot sees Scott’s older brother Paul (Stefan Dennis) continue with his sham marriage to Gail (Fiona Corke).

It also introduced their iconic cousin Hilary (Anne Scott-Pendlebury), and saw Ramsay Street harridan Mrs Mangel (Vivean Gray) catch Charlene’s bouquet.

The icing on the (wedding) cake was a very 80s sounding ballad – Suddenly – which was written and performed by Melbourne artist Angry Anderson. It played out in its entirety during the church scenes, before being belted out again as the happy couple headed off on their honeymoon.

Released as ‘The Wedding Theme from Neighbours’, it reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart in 1988.

But now, 38 years on from it defining an era of the serial drama, the song has seemingly been erased from existence. Well, at least in Erinsborough it has.

Last week we reported that production company Fremantle Media have began uploading archive episodes of the show from the very beginning to YouTube.

At the time of writing you can watch up to episode 540, with those who have streamed the wedding episode noticing that AI technology has stripped out all traces of Suddenly, and replaced it with a generic, copyright-free track.

And quite frankly, it doesn’t cut the mustard.

‘Scott and Charlene’s wedding has been uploaded to the old episode Neighbours channel and the music butchering is even worse than you can imagine’ said one fan on X.

‘Suddenly has been removed – except for the odd second where they couldn’t. Mad how this was signed off for uploading.’

Another said that they’d worked out a solution: ‘I put that scene on mute and played suddenly on my Spotify,’ they said.

‘I could handle the whole non copyrighted music but not for that scene.’

In the YouTube comments, the angry continued.

‘Pretty much the most iconic scene in soap opera history destroyed by replaced music. Original music needs to be reinstated urgently!!’ said one viewer.

‘Replacing SUDDENLY completely destroys the episode. The pivotal scenes arguably of the entire series were edited to the specific song so now the emotion has been removed, figure it out somehow otherwise it’s a huge flop watching it like this…’ said another.

A third added: ‘This goes to prove how important the music was to the success of Neighbours. Without it, so much of the emotion and drama is lost.’

In 2014, the happy couple’s son Daniel (Tim Phillipps) joined the show, and was heard listening to Suddenly upon his arrival. Bizarrely, this hasn’t been cut.

Neighbours will come to an end for the third time in December, having celebrated its 40th anniversary in March – and executive producer Jason Herbison has ruled out a return for Kylie and Jason.

‘I haven’t picked up the phone to [them, or] Guy [Pierce] again’ he told Back to the Bay, referencing the last time the show was axed in 2022.

‘I’ve left them alone, but it will be very similar in tone. I think it’s a very warm, hopeful tone, but it’s also a little bit different. There are things about it that I think might remind people of the previous finale, but it’s also very different.’

New episodes of Neighbours continue to stream Monday to Thursday on Amazon Prime Video from 7am.

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