Peacock Saved by the Bell: A Self-Conscious Satirical Delight

Saved by the Bell – the Saturday morning show from the late ’80s and early’ 90s about the kids at Bayside High and their struggles with dating, silly bets, and caffeine pills – has inspired its share of spinoffs. There was Saved by the Bell: The College Years, the short-lived, prime-time series about the teenage college years; a pair of TV movies; and Saved by the bell: the new class, another Saturday morning regular who placed fresh young faces in roles based on those previously held by Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Elizabeth Berkley and the others. At the beginning of the 2000’s, Saved by the Bell had been reduxed to death, which is why it may seem overkill to see a new Saved by the Bell back in 2020, this time on Peacock, where he debuts on November 25. But exaggerated, it is not.

This single camera, ten episodes Saved by the Bell, which spits the original in all the correct and trenchant ways, is a clever, often hilarious reimagining of a show that’s loved more in ironic than heartfelt terms, a fact the sitcom Peacock understands right down to its bayside mocking bones. . Developed in this latest incarnation by Tracey Wigfield, who wrote for 30 Rock and The Mindy project and created the underrated Good news, The Pilot is perhaps the strongest first episode of a comedy I’ve seen all year. The additional two episodes provided to critics aren’t always as funny as the first one, but still sting the high school sitcom bear with sly assurance.

Several of the original cast members are producers and cast members in this revival Bell, including Gosselaar, of whom Zack Morris is now governor of California, a post he sought “as part of a scheme to avoid paying a $ 75 parking ticket.” Zack is still married to high school sweetheart Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani Thiessen), has a son in Bayside named Mack (Mitchell Hoog), and is still junk, which is why he’s slashing the school’s budget by $ 10 billion. State education streams and several high schools in low income neighborhoods without considering where these students might go.

After a reporter at a press conference suggested these children should be sent to schools in areas that pay high property taxes, students at dilapidated Douglas High are soon being bused to Bayside. (In a sentence that will make all the students and parents who fought remotely during the pandemic laugh, after the principal at Douglas announced the school was closed, he adds: “No need to panic, you can learn everything. what you need on the Internet. “)

As this configuration implies, Saved by the Bell uses quick humor to highlight the inequalities of the public school system and the stubborn hypocrisy of the privileged, which gives it, especially in the pilot, an atmosphere close to the Beautiful white parents Podcast. This goal fits perfectly with its larger mission of constantly poking fun at the lack of real-world perspective in the original series.

When Douglas students arrive at Bayside, they are truly taken aback by the abundance of perks and the elitism of their peers. Devante (Dexter Darden), who has a hidden singing talent, is amazed that more of his Bayside cohorts are signed up to the Bath Bomb Craft Club than the soccer team. Daisy (Haskiri Velazquez), who succeeds Zack Morris as the main character who regularly speaks directly to the camera, is baffled when she watches Mack, her “Bayside pal”, access all of her school books by scanning a QR of mobile device. coded. “What if I don’t have one?” asks Daisy, whose phone is aggressively not smart. (It’s a huge brick from the time of the first Saved by the Bell aired.) “You haven’t?” Mack asks. “What is that?”

Then there’s Aisha (Alycia Pascual-Peña), a soccer player who is thrilled to have access to so many amenities, but still confused by some of the quirks that Bayside regulars don’t seem to notice. “Is it just me or do the elders at this school really look old?” she asks after a middle-aged man in a college jacket asks Lexie (Josie Totah), an openly transgender cheerleader with her own E! reality TV show, at the Harvest Dance. “It’s just you,” Lexie replies.

The young cast members are all lovely and fully embrace the tone of the show; Hoog has an especially strong mastery of how to play an arrogant kid who, unlike his father before him, doesn’t even try to sound likable. As director of Bayside, Mr. Toddman, the formidable John Michael Higgins, a veteran of Wigfield Good news, is exhausted and goes out for lunch, but really cares about the well-being of his students. As sharp as the comedy may be, there is an undercurrent of sweetness in this Saved by the Bell this keeps it firmly current and accessible.

Unsurprisingly, there are also plenty of callbacks to the show that started it all. While Gosselaar and Thiessen only appear occasionally and Lark Voorhies, aka Lisa Turtle, appears in an episode, Berkley and Mario Lopez reprise their respective roles from Jessie Spano and AC Slater as regular cast members. Slater is a physical education teacher and soccer coach at Bayside, while Jessie, whose son Jamie (Belmont Cameli) is on the soccer team, works as a school counselor. She is also the author of the book I’m so excited, I’m so scared … of becoming a parent, a reference to a classic, overworked dialogue piece from the original SBTB. (If you know, you know.) The kids at Bayside are even regulars at Max, the restaurant where owner Max (Ed Alonzo) sometimes still serves up a magic trick with his dishes.

In a way, the students at Bayside aren’t just stuck in their rights bubbles, they’re stuck in a moment in time as well, and that’s actually a bright point to make on a show like this. . Television reboots exist because many Americans are nostalgic for the past. But being nostalgic for the past often translates into a belief that the “good old days” were better, a seemingly harmless idea that becomes dangerous when it transforms into a state of mind that hinders social progress. In its subtext, at least, Saved by the Bell says life 30 years ago, on TV show and maybe in general, was more ridiculous and compelling than you remember. While it can be fun to look back, it might also be time to let the kids of 2020 – the ones with no reverence for what Bayside stands for – lead the way.