This April, NBCUniversal will launch their own streaming service, Peacock. Just like Disney+, CBS All-Access and HBOMAX, the new service will mine old gold IP’s and breathe new life into them for new audiences. One of those series is Saved By The Bell, which originally aired on NBC Saturday mornings from August 1989 to May 1993.
The series, which starred Gosselaar as perennial schemer Zack Morris, Mario Lopez, Tiffani-Amber Thiessen, Dustin Diamond, Lark Voorhies and Elizabeth Berkeley was rebooted several times.
The show spawned two spin-off series: Saved by the Bell: The College Years (1993–1994), a primetime series that follows several of the characters to college, and Saved by the Bell: The New Class (1993–2000), a Saturday morning series that follows a new group of students at Bayside High School. There were also two TV movies, Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style in 1992 and Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas in 1994.
Here’s what Reel 360 knows so far:
The plot. The show’s official synopsis is, “When California governor Zack Morris gets into hot water for closing too many low-income high schools, he proposes they send the affected students to the highest-performing schools in the state—including Bayside High. The influx of new students gives the overprivileged Bayside kids a much needed and hilarious dose of reality.”
The cast. The Hollywood Reporter announced on January 6 that the show had cast Josie Totah as its star. Totah, who came out as transgender in 2018, will play Lexi, described by THR as “a beautiful, sharp-tongued cheerleader and the most popular girl at Bayside High who is both admired and feared by her fellow students.”
Totah will be joined by a few of the original cast members, including Berkley and Access Hollywood’s Lopez. Lopez also appeared in writer, Colin Costello’s 2013 feature The Stream. Berkley announced on Instagram that she and Lopez signed on to the project back in September 2019.
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Gosselaar also currently appears in ABC’s Black-ish spinoff series, Mixed-ish. Thiessen, who played Zack’s classmate Kelly Kapowski, is also involved in discussions about returning to the show.
For sh*ts and giggles, here is the original opening:
In recent years, Saved by the Bell has been classified as educational and informational. The show was named one of the “20 Best School Shows of all Time” by AOL TV.
SOURCE: THR
