Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Saved By The Bell: The New Class, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 2o00.  The show is currently on Prime.

This week, Weasel’s found love again.  Or has he?

Episode 1.11 “Weasel Love”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 20th, 1993)

Weasel’s online girlfriend, Natalie (Stephanie Dicker), moves to California and enrolls at Bayside.  At first, she looks and acts just like Tori Spelling during Tori’s time on the original Saved By The Bell.  However, Megan, Vicki, and Lindsay give her a makeover that …. actually, makes her look significantly worse.  But everyone at Bayside insists that it makes her look better so Weasel starts to feel insecure.  Tommy D, Scott, and Mr. Belding (really?) give Weasel a makeover to team him how to be cool.  That coolness goes to Weasel’s head and soon, he and Natalie aren’t speaking.

Uh-oh!  Natalie and Weasel are both in the school band!  Natalie plays piano.  Weasel plays saxophone.  (Needless to say, we never actually see Natalie’s hands when she’s playing piano.)  How is the band going to win that trip to New York if Natalie and Weasel aren’t capable of performing a duet together?

Well, maybe Tommy can hop on the computer and send Natalie a message “from Weasel” apologizing.  Natalie is touched but later, Weasel reveals that he didn’t write the message.  But Weasel and Natalie still talk through their differences and the band wins that New York trip!

As for this episode’s B-plot, Tommy D and Scott trick two of the nerd characters into leaving the band so that they can replace them.  As I watched Scott and Tommy trick the nerds into thinking that they were losing their hearing, it occurred to me that it takes a lot of charisma to make a schemer likable.  Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Mario Lopez had that charisma, which is why the first Saved By The Bell worked despite Zack being a sociopath.  Robert Sutherland Telfer and Jonathan Angel on the other hand….

(Actually, in all honesty, Jonathan Angel was likable as Tommy.  He had the goofy dumb guy thing down.  Telfer, however, didn’t have Gosselaar’s cocky charm.  As a result, Scott usually comes across as being more desperate than confident.)

Anyway, this was another dumb episode.  There’s no consistency when it comes to how characters like Weasel are portrayed so it’s really had to care about their lives one way or another.  This episode, Weasel got a girlfriend.  Even though I haven’t seen the remaining season one episodes yet, I can guarantee that she will never be mentioned again.

Finally, the band sounded terrible.  Leave them in New York.