Saved by the Bell: Bayside Gets Woke

Every morning before walking over to my high school, I would watch two episodes of Saved by the Bell on TBS. The total number of episodes in syndication is 126, so I rewatched these episodes multiple times over the course of three years, and I regret nothing. So when I heard that NBC had rebooted the show over on their new streaming service, Peacock, I was all in to see what had happened at Bayside High. And it did not disappoint.

The reboot is the most clever piece of nostalgia programming I've ever encountered. It simultaneously manages to mock the original series and how ridiculous it was, while still treating it with the gentle love you would afford to your un-woke family member with whom you shared fond memories. The premise is simple - Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) is now the Governor of California, and has closed down a bunch of schools due to a budget crisis. As a result, students from the underprivileged "urban" (aka they don't have a lot of white kids) Douglas High, are made to attend cushy Bayside High and experience what it's like to be in a school where every student is fabulously rich and thinks it's normal to eat at a sit-down restaurant everyday. When I was watching this show as a kid, I never remotely considered how privileged and absurd these high schoolers were, but in this reboot, that is basically all anyone talks about, and it is glorious. As soon as Lil Yachty starts singing the theme song, you know exactly what you're in for.

The new cast consists of the Type A Daisy (Haskiri Velazquez) who is an intelligent, socially conscious, hard-working Latina who is determined to ace all her extracurriculars and make this an inclusive environment for the Douglas High students. Her best friend Aisha (Alycia Pascual-Pena) wants to play football, and that dream goes in an unexpectedly poignant direction that proves that while the kids at Bayside might be rich and privileged, they also spend a lot of time talking about their feelings and encouraging each other to live their dreams, which you don't get to do when you're poor and struggling to get a fair shake in the world. Josie Totah plays Lexi, a transgender cheerleader, which is a truly wonderful character to include in a high school comedy. The fact that she's trans was a throwaway line in the first few episodes, but was then fully acknowledged halfway through, and it felt like an appropriate reflection of the progress we've made. Yes, in many parts of the country, LGBTQ+ kids still have a horrible time, but on this show, we get a depiction of how it's difficult and yet perfectly acceptable to transition and get on with your life. And finally, we have Mac (Mitchell Hoog) who is Zack's son (his mother is of course Kelly Kapowski, aka Tiffani Thiessen), and Jamie (Belmont Cameli), whose mother is none other than Jessie Spano. 

Elizabeth Berkley Lauren reprises her role as Jessie, now serving as Bayside's guidance counselor, and Mario Lopez also returns as AC Slater, now working as a PE teacher and Bayside's football coach. While Gosselaar and Thiessen only show up in a few episodes of the series (spoiler alert), Lauren and Lopez are series regulars and provide a fabulous link between the old show and the new, serving up hearty doses of nostalgia in every scene. When Jessie calls Slater a pig and he goes "oink oink," your heart will melt and then you'll go "wait, why the hell did I love this show so much, it was so sexist!" Rounding out the cast is John Michael Higgins as Ronald Toddman, the hapless principal, who is a fine stand-in for Mr. Belding and ends up getting a very silly Bayside-related backstory of his own. 

Listen, I'm not saying Saved by the Bell is high art. But this is a very specific show designed to appeal to people like me who grew up on the original and are ready to embrace it, warts and all, in this reboot. With showrunner Tracey Wigfield at the helm, the writing is insanely clever and walks an amazing tightrope between being funny and woke. The final episodes offer a truly incisive look at how education fails poor people or minorities in this country and how we need to do better. For a show that's supposed to be a dumb comedy, it is shockingly smart and self-aware and has actual lessons to impart, and it is honestly well worth your time. And if you don't care about the American education system, fine. Just watch it for Episode 7 where you get to watch Mario Lopez dance to the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann thirty years later and look like he hasn't aged a day. That's the magic of television.