The Saved By The Bell Reboot Has No Business Being This Good!

If you’re like me, you’re over all the Hollywood reboots. I was incredibly skeptical about the news of a Saved By The Bell reboot. To hear that it was coming to NBC’s streaming platform, Peacock, was even more dubious. This also isn’t the first time someone has tried to reboot this iconic show. Remember Saved by the Bell – The New Class? Yeah, I’ve tried to erase it from my memory too.

What is Saved By The Bell?

Saved by The Bell is a sitcom that hit the airwaves in 1989. It was the first-ever live show going against the epic Saturday Morning Cartoon lineup of the early 90s. The show told the story of six quirky Bayside High School Students. Zach Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Theisen), AC Slater (Mario Lopez), Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley), Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies), and Screech Powers (Dustin Diamond) who are always up to some wild antics, while also tackling larger teen drama, in a fun, memorable, and relatable way. Saved by the Bell was very much ahead of its time.

Saved by the Bell for 2020

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Which brings me to this latest incarnation. The new Saved by the Bell isn’t just a reboot, it’s also a revival. Zach Morris is now Governor of California and not doing a very good job – shocker, I know. In order to fix his 10 Billion dollar education budget cuts mistake, the school system is now busing in kids from the inner-city to Bayside High and The Valley.

The Old Mixes With The New

At Bayside, we are met with some old and new faces:  Jessie Spano is the school guidance counselor, and her son Jamie (Belmont Cameli) attends the school as well. AC Slater is the school’s coach. The popular charmer Mack Morris (Mitchell Hoog), Zach and Kelly’s son, runs the school and Lexi is the mean girl with a heart of gold. The dynamic at Bayside is so over the top, it’s a borderline absurdist – which on paper doesn’t sound like it should work, but it somehow does.

These wild and crazy kids are joined by Daisy (Haskiri Velazquez), Aisha (Alycia Pascual-Peña), and Devante (Dexter Darden) who bring the grounded, straight man-ness this show needs in order to work. 

Saved by the Bell is filled with pranks (Mack floods the gym in episode one), schemes, taking on gender norms, tackling sexuality, and so much more. As I continued to watch episode after episode, I found that the returning cast and new characters do a fantastic job of handling everything that’s thrown at them. Every episode I watched got better and better. Even though the show is a clash of realities, within it is a charming, fun, full of heart, smart comedy for all ages. I know, I wasn’t expecting it either.

So, what do you think of the Saved By The Bell reboot?