Every good soap relies on a cliffhanger, from Zoe Slater telling Kat in EastEnders that she wasn't her mother (yes she was!) to the fantastical return from the dead of Bobby Ewing in that famous Dallas shower scene, wiping out an entire year of the show in the process. And of course Neighbours itself is no stranger to a good cliffhanger, from Harold's sudden disappearance on a rocky outcrop with only his spectacles left behind, to Toadie driving his new wife Dee off a cliff, Susan slapping Karl after his kiss with Sarah, to the superlative 1997 season finale in which we had not one, not two, but three cliffhangers rolled together in one, as Karl succumbed to temptation, Billy kissed Caitlin and Ben's stock car race ended in disaster.

The best cliffhangers often involve the spectacular, the mysterious and those jaw dropping moments that leave you pining for the next episode. Somehow, quite magically, Neighbours in 2004 managed to pull this off quite beautifully, to end a superb year on an even greater high. In an already packed year in which we had seen Karl break Susan's heart once again by informing her that he was to be a father to Izzy's child, to a drug addled Jack crashing his car into a lamppost, to Serena revealing that Luka was her brother and Libby leaving the street with Darren, we were then treated to a finale to end all finales as recent events came to a head. With Izzy torn between whether to marry Karl or escape from psychopath Gus, she chose the latter and fled the wedding venue, nearly crashed her car into Susan and then seemingly disappeared for good, Susan's words of wisdom about never coming back to Ramsay Street ringing in her ears. This set things up for an astonishing finale.

Izzy's sudden about turn and return to the wedding venue to apologise to Karl set in motion a series of events of which Neighbours has tried but not quite been able to replicate subsequently. Gus fleeing Ramsay Street being chased by Stuart and Boyd, the lighting of the fire in Lou's Place, Steph being implicated in the death of her grandfather, Lou and Max's astonishment at the extent of the fire, Stuart and Sindi becoming trapped in the inferno, Harold watching as his beloved coffee shop burnt to the ground, Max being tossed into the air by a huge inferno and residents watching in utter horror as the Lassiters Complex became engulfed in a fireball. And of course, on top of all that was the return of Paul Robinson after an 11-year absence. The fire itself was a natural place for this storyline to turn and didn't feel shoehorned into the episode for the sake of it (although of course was necessitated by the set being riddled with asbestos), with the nutty Gus seemingly intent on getting revenge on those who had wronged him. But we were also left with so many teasing questions at the end with a series of cliffhangers. Who lit the fire, was it Gus? Paul? Izzy?? Who survived the inferno? Why had Paul suddenly returned? How would Steph explain herself to a horrified Lyn and Michael? Certainly, the finale to end all finales, and so well executed that even 21 years later it still feels to me like the high point of the show.

Less than a year later we were treated to another monumental storyline as an airplane carrying numerous Ramsay Street residents exploded and crashed into the Bass Strait. This was a huge event; not only did we have a series of nail-biting episodes with numerous cliffhangers thrown in, but we were left with our jaws to the floor wondering which residents would survive this devastating crash. Although I wasn't particularly thrilled at losing David, Lil and Serena, whose character arcs and storylines I had enjoyed, for a 20th anniversary celebration event this was truly spectacular stuff. And again, like the Lassiters fire, it wasn't a random event thrown in for the sake of drama, there was true meaning behind it as we eventually learnt that Paul's son Robert, masquerading as his twin brother Cameron, planted the bomb trying to kill not only Paul, but Elle and Izzy as well. Truly chilling stuff, with far reaching consequences as a guilt-ridden Harold attempted to strangle Paul weeks later in revenge for the loss of his family and the Timmins consoled themselves with the loss of Dylan who had gone on the run. For a show that doesn't do such big events very often, this was incredible stuff, with the heightening tension as the bomb counter ticked down and the sense of impending doom for the residents still bringing a chill to this day.