In 1988 a high school-set teen sitcom
produced by NBC aired one season on the Disney Channel. The following year NBC
retooled the show and moved it back on its own network as perhaps one of the
most iconic sitcoms for young audiences in the early 1990s: “Saved by the Bell.”
While it gained spinoffs especially one with a new set of characters, it is the
original cast that is most remembered. Perhaps that is why the new “Saved by
the Bell” sitcom being developed by Universal TV for NBCUniversal’s Peacock
streaming service brings back some of those cast members to make the show a
direct sequel, but with bite.
Comic Book Resources reports that while still a sitcom, the
upcoming “Saved by the Bell” series on Peacock will have more of an edge to its
presentation. That comes from the mouth of actor Mario Lopez himself. Lopez,
famous for portraying lovable jerk jock Slater from the first series, is one of
four known cast members back to support the next generation of misfit students
in California’s Bayside High. He does promise that despite an up-kick in atmospheric
grittiness, there will still be lot of hilarious fun to be had.
Lopez notes that
the difference in style and sensibility comes from no longer having a live
studio audience for taping as with the old sitcom. “It's shot on film this time
and Tracy Wigfield, who's the show-runner who did ‘30 Rock’,” he explains, adding
that the new edginess of the current-generation Bayside students will still be
clever and hip for audiences. The actor also comments on the changes that he
and the old cast reprising their previous roles as adults have undergone in their
backstories to make them as they are presented now; he himself is back in
Bayside as the high school’s gym teacher.
The in-universe
justification of gritty hipness to the new “Saved by the Bell” is due to some
questionable educational policies of California’s state governor, former
Bayside High alumnus Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar). With so many low-income
high schools shut down, their students must now be distributed to California’s
remaining, highly-funded secondary institutions, including Bayside, where Zack
and Kelly’s (Tiffani Thiessen) own son Mac (Mitchell Hoog) is attending. He is
not the only generation Xerox around, as Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) has
her son Jamie (Belmont Cameli) as football team captain. Principal Belding’s
successor Principal Toddman (John Michael Higgins) has his work cut out for
him.
Gosselaar,
Thiessen, Berkley, Mario Lopez and Tracy Wigfield are all executive producers
of the sitcom, with Wigfield also being show-runner and head writer. The new “Saved
by the Bell” series will arrive on NBCUniversal Peacock streaming sometime
later this year.
Image courtesy of YouTube
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