"Forever" is a somewhat more mature and certainly more aesthetically pleasing swan song for the show that made Miley Cyrus the most famous teenager on the planet and her father Billy Ray relevant again. Production on the sitcom concluded May 2010, but in typical Disney Channel fashion, the remaining episodes are taking their dear time to air. Ten of Season 4's reported twelve episodes have aired since July, leaving only two shows left to see, including a series finale not scheduled to debut until next March.
The Stewart family has moved into a Malibu ranch, with Miley/Hannah Montana (Miley Cyrus) now having her best friend Lilly Truscott (Emily Osment) living with her, her father Robby Ray (Billy Ray Cyrus), and her older brother Jackson (Jason Earles).
Miley and Lilly's other close friend, Oliver Oken, has been downgraded from the core cast; actor Mitchel Musso reprised the role once as a guest star and presumably will return for the series finale. If the show had to drop a regular, a better choice would have been Rico (Moises Arias), a character whose one note (precocious shrewdness) is lost in post-pubescence. But, no, Rico's still around. Joining the show as practically a regular but not with opening credits billing is South African/Australian actress/pop singer Tammin Sursok as Jackson's unexpected bikini model girlfriend Siena. (Remarkably she's only six years younger than the oddly youthful Earles, as the two bizarrely play their teenaged characters on opposite sides of 30.)
