It’s no secret that I am a Neighbours girl. Like many fans of the show, my love for the batshit soap all started at a young age when I didn’t want to leave the couch after tuning in to Channel Ten for the nightly showing of The Simpsons. I’ve had a soft spot for the show ever since.
So, when I landed a job for a TV magazine and had to recap the beloved series every week for two years, writing about the bonkers storylines was a highlight each week. As a result, my brain is absolutely filled to the brim with Neighbours storylines.
While this wouldn’t usually be considered a good or useful thing, recently, a particular storyline from 2021 popped into my head and now I’m convinced that maybe, just maybe, Neighbours has an uncanny power to predict future events with its batshit storylines a lá The Simpsons.
Okay, yes, I know how this sounds but hear me out.
In 2021, there was a plot where death cap mushrooms were used in a lunch, accidentally poisoning a bunch of people.
…Does that ring any bells?
If not, let me refresh your memory. In August this year, the country was shocked when it was reported that three people had died from eating poisonous wild mushrooms at a lunch hosted by a Victorian woman named Erin Patterson.
It was reported that her former in-laws Gail and Don Patterson, along with Gail’s sister Heather and her husband Reverend Ian Wilkinson had eaten the beef Wellington meal which was believed to contain death cap mushrooms. Tragically, Gail, Don and Heather passed away, while Ian survived the meal. He was released from hospital this week.
In February 2021, a similar situation arose on Ramsay Street.
A competition to find the best dish in Erinsborough was happening in town and Kyle (Chris Milligan) was desperate to win. After all, he’d just taken over his late father’s restaurant which was located inside an inactive tram cartridge – how very Melbourne – and wanted to do his dad proud.
To take home the competition, he decided to make his famous kangaroo pie.
His girlfriend Roxy (Zima Anderson), who had no prior cooking experience whatsoever, decided to give him a hand but she forgot to buy a key ingredient to the recipe – mushrooms. So, instead of ducking down to Aldi to pick up some of the fungusy boys, she saw a little cluster of mushrooms outside the Tram.
In an effort to save some time, she unknowingly substituted some death cap mushrooms for regular edible ones.
When the judge tasted the pie later on, she thought it was delicious and Kyle was in line to win the competition. Not long after the judge had her bite, she fell ill, but thankfully, she came out okay after only taking one bite of the poison pie.
Things took a turn when Toadie (Ryan Moloney) – it can’t be an article about Neighbours without mentioning the star of the show – bought a whole heap of the contaminated pies from the Tram to take home for his kids. He ended up giving them to his pal Ned (Ben Hall) for his help with a lip sync battle earlier in the week.
I can’t make this shit up, folks.
So Ned was about to tuck in, before changing his mind at the last second. And for a moment it seemed like no one would encounter the full wrath of the poisoned pie until Bea swooped in and eats the whole pie. She gets super sick an hour later.
In short, she went to the hospital and doctors feared for her life. Her police officer boyfriend Levi (Richie Morris) investigates the case and it’s a whole thing, as you’d expect. After a big hullabaloo, Bea was fine but it’s riveting stuff, worth the watch if you have the time.
As you can see, the ven diagram between case facts of the recent Melbourne mushroom lunch case has some overlaps with Ramsay street. Is it a coincidence? Perhaps. Or maybe, there’s more to the story.
I reached out to Jason Herbison, Neighbour‘s Executive Producer and Writer, to find out whether he has dabbled in future prediction, or has any psychic skills to note. But it turns out that while he does not identify as psychic by any means, he does seriously consider the probability of events when they’re going over potential storylines in the writer’s room.
“We love coming up with the storylines for Neighbours, everything from relatable domestic drama to the fantastical,” he said.
“When leaning on the more heightened side, our motto is – if it ‘could’ happen and ‘has’ happened somewhere, then we can do it.
“Very often we will plot something to cries of ‘how ridiculous’ only to find the exact thing had happened in real life.
A storyline that comes to mind is our Erinsborough tornado in 2014. It wasn’t long after that that mini tornados gripped Melbourne. Suddenly we were in Kansas Toto. Sort of!
One story we didn’t do because it was judged too unrealistic was an earthquake. But since we’ve recently had several in Melbourne, it might just have to happen one day,” he concludes.
Well, there you have it.
While Jason and his creative team of writers might not be able to predict events like The Simpsons somehow can, it just goes to show that no matter how batshit the fictional events creative minds come up with are, the world is an equally bonkers place.
I wonder which storyline will come true next?
Truth 🤝 Fiction.
You can catch the new episodes of Neighbours on 10Play.
The post Has Neighbours Become The New Simpsons Bc I Swear It Predicted The Mushroom Lunch Saga In 2021 appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
