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.

It’s Tommy D’s birthday!

Episode 2.18 “Breaking Up”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 12th, 1994)

Lindsay wants to buy Tommy a great birthday present but, unfortunately, she’s broke.  All of her friends are broke.  It looks like they’re going to have to cancel Tommy’s birthday this year.  But then Brian comes up with a plan.  What if they convince Belding to let Brian and Bobby be in charge of the video yearbook and then the use the camera to shoot a birthday video Tommy while, at the same time, screwing over all of the students who actually want a yearbook?

It’s a great idea!  Bobby films Linsday talking about how much she dislikes everything that Tommy is really into, like cars.  Bobby also films Tommy growing close to Katie Keller (Kim Baranof), Brian’s never before-mentioned sister who does not appear to be from Switzerland.  (In all fairness, she could be a stepsister.  The show has never really made it clear just why exactly Brian left Switzerland for Bayside so maybe his mother married an American or something.)  Katie likes cars and videogames, just like Tommy!

Realizing that Tommy and Lindsay’s relationship is in trouble, Brian pays off a lot of other students to tell Tommy that Katie’s been coming onto them.  Wow, way to slutshame you own sister, Brian.  What a jerk.  Anyway, Tommy puts the kibosh on his growing attraction to Katie but, at his birthday party, Lindsay learns about how Brian spread rumors about Katie to save Lindsay’s relationship with Tommy.  Lindsay and Tommy admit to not having much in common and Saved By The Bell: The New Class’s longest relationship comes to an end….

And that’s  not really a good thing for either Lindsay or Tommy D.  This isn’t like when Slater and Jessie used to break up.  Slater and Jessie actually had personalities that went beyond who they were dating.  The same can’t really be said about Tommy and Lindsay.  It’s not the fault of the actors, as Jonathan Angel and Natalia Cigliuti were actually two of the more likable members of the ensemble.  It’s just that Saved By The Bell: The New Class was never about complex characters.

It’s also not about continuity.  Lindsay and Tommy D are still dating in the country club episodes.  Because all of the members of the Gang already knew Screech in the country club episodes, that means that they had to have taken place in the summer after the school episodes.  Plus, in this episode, Brian is not dating Rachel and that again means that the country club episodes had to happen after this episode.  So, Lindsay and Tommy D are either going to get back together or the show’s writers just didn’t care.

What a mess!