It might have been 26 years since Zack Morris and his pals last wandered the halls of Bayside High School but apparently it’s never too late to be Saved By The Bell because the show is being rebooted with original cast members.
Between this and the return of Lizzie McGuire, 90s kids are going to have a lot to catch up on when it comes to seeing what our favourite characters have been up to.
The school-set kids show originally ran from 1989 to 1993, though re-runs kept it alive for years after it came to an end. I know this because I have fond memories of watching it, and I wasn’t born until 1996.
Saved By The Bell followed the Bayside gang as they navigated high school, relationships and run-ins with their principal. The show came to an end with graduation but it lived on in two spinoffs, Saved by the Bell: The College Years and Saved by the Bell: The New Class, as well as a pair of TV movies.
Obviously it would be difficult to pass off the now middle-aged actors as young students again, so the reboot is set to take things in a slightly new direction.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the new series explores what happens when California Gov. Zack Morris gets into hot water for closing too many low-income high schools. He proposes the affected students be sent to the highest-performing schools in the state, one of which is Bayside High School.
The influx of new students ‘gives the over-privileged Bayside kids a much-needed and hilarious dose of reality.’
Mario Lopez, who played the kind-hearted jock A.C. Slater, and Elizabeth Berkley, aka straight-A student Jessie Spano, are set to bring their characters back to life in the reboot, allowing fans to see how the teenage sweethearts get mixed up in each others’ lives once again.
Sources have said Lopez and Berkley will have new roles as parents in the upcoming series and while this hasn’t been confirmed it seems like a logical way to tie the characters in with the events of Bayside High.
The two actors will also produce the comedy, which comes from 30 Rock writer Tracey Wigfield. Peter Engel, the creator of the original series, is set to be an executive producer alongside Wigfield.
Berkley confirmed the news on Twitter:
Saved By The Bell will air on NBCUniversal’s upcoming streaming service, Peacock, which is set to launch next April. Peacock will reportedly be home to more than 15,000 hours of content, with exclusive library titles such as Parks and Recreation alongside originals.
One potential piece of content which has TV fans talking is a reboot of The Office, a show NBCU’s Bonnie Hammer, Chairman of Direct-to-Consumer and Digital Enterprises, said is her ‘hope and goal’ to create, Deadline report.
The Office came to an end in 2013 but it got a second wind through streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, causing many fans to become hooked on the show.
NBCU recently acquired streaming rights to the show, taking it away from Netflix US.
Speaking of plans for the series, Hammer said:
The Office comes back to us in January 2021. It is my hope that we can figure what that great reboot would be. We are having conversations.
The company are clearly taking an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ approach to their content but with shows like Saved By The Bell and The Office in the mix I don’t think many people will be complaining!
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.