In France, Neighbours, dubbed as Les voisins, was launched by Antenne 2 in August 1989. Screened twice daily at 11:30 and 5:45, it secured ratings of 24 per cent of the market, in fact Antenne 2’s average for that year. However, for reasons which Antenne 2 is unwilling to disclose, the evening screening was shifted after only ten editions to 6:30. This put it up against stronger competition from others of the then five channels, and its rating dropped to just below 16 percent of market share. A further scheduling change briefly preceded its demise after a total of only seven months’ screening. The 185 episodes purchased only just included the debut of Kylie Minogue at episode 169. According to its French agent, Rolande Cousin, Antenne 2 bought Neighbours exclusively on the basis of its colossal British success (Cousin 1992), a phenomenon mentioned by all six articles heralding Neighbours’s arrival on French screens; its Australian success was referred to by four articles (Baron 1989; Brugière 1989; Lepetit 1989; Pélégrin 1989; Thomann 1989; and A.W. 1989). The Minogue factor also appears significant. Her singing career peaked in 1988–1989, and among the six articles she rated one cover story (Télé 7 jours), an exclusive interview and a cover story with Jason Donovan (in Télé poche), and two other references (Brugière 1989; and Thomann 1989). Cousin identifies five other potential appeals in the program for French viewers: its sun, its “acceptable exoticism,” its lack of blacks (a sensitive topic in France, as witness the racist political career of Jean-Marie Le Pen), its lack of other disturbing social material, and its everyday issues (Cousin 1992). For all this potential appeal, Antenne 2 still delayed transmitting by three months, pushing its opening into August, when most of France goes on holiday, and opted instead for the American Top Models (Baron 1989: 25). This lack of confidence in its purchase instances what Cousin called a “Pavlovian reflex” against non-US serial fiction (Cousin 1992), and points to broader issues than the fame of two of the program’s principals. The French commentaries differ noticeably from the American in their assessment of the ten textual features of Neighbours singled out above. One feature – women as doers – is not mentioned at all. All other features are mentioned at least once. The two most often referred to are the everyday, and the domestic and suburban. But Neighbours’s non-exceptionality, its everyday realism, had a different status for French than for American reviewers. For most of the latter it offered a desirable antidote to the spectacular confections of home-grown soaps. For French reviewers it was treated in one of two ways. While some derogated the program’s perceived banality (Brugière 1989; Pélégrin 1989), others, whether high(er) brow or plugging the Minogue factor, remained curiously non-committal about its everyday realism. There was a similarly curious abstention from either positive or negative evaluation of the program. Commentators’ apparent unease with this centrally distinguishing feature of Neighbours, its everyday realism, suggests that it represented something of a conundrum in the mediascape, in particular the field of television serial fiction screened in France, and may well echo the unease evidently felt by its buyer. The reasons require some clarification.