Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Saturdays, I will be reviewing Saved By The Bell, which ran on NBC from 1989 to 1993.  The entire show is currently streaming on Prime and Tubi!

This week, Zack and Jessie fight over a pointless, ceremonial title.

Episode 1.14 “The Election”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on November 18th, 1989)

This is the episode where Jessie is running unopposed for student body president.  When Zack overhears Belding and Mr. Dewey (Patrick Thomas O’Brien) discussing how the new president will win a week-long trip to Washington, D.C., he decides to enter the race.  Because, seriously, what California kid doesn’t want to spend a week in one of the most humid cities in America?

Back when reruns of Saved By The Bell were running on every basic cable station, this episode seemed to show up a lot.  Rewatching it for this review, the first thing I noticed was that the cast all looked quite a bit younger than they did in last week’s episode.  Zack’s voice still hadn’t cracked and Mark-Paul Gosselaar was still overacting in much the same way as he did during Good Morning Miss Bliss.  I also noticed that none of the relationships between the characters felt correct.  Neither Zack nor Slater appeared to have a crush on Kelly.  When Lisa volunteers to be Jessie’s campaign manager, Jessie acts as if she barely knows Lisa.  Just as in the Dancing to the Max episode, a lot of emphasis is put on the idea of Zack and Jessie being lifelong friends.  I’ve always suspected that the showrunners originally meant for Zack and Jessie to become a couple and this episode seems to lean in that direction.  As for this episode, it feels like it was meant to be the first or second episode of the show but, for whatever reason, it didn’t air until halfway through the first season.

Episodes like this always amuse me because, seriously …. it’s just the Student Council!  The Student Council has no real power.  No one cares about the Student Council or, at least, they didn’t when I went to high school.  It’s a ceremonial position.  When Jessie talks about wanting to make real change, I was on Zack’s rather cynical side.  The Student Council President can’t change anything, Jessie!  When Kelly said that she needed time to think about her vote because the winner would “be in charge of the whole school,” I really wanted someone to explain to Kelly that no, the principal and the school board and the school superintendent are in charge of the whole school.

Despite trying to sabotage his own campaign after Belding tells him that the trip has been canceled, Zack is elected by one vote.  (Jessie gives Kelly the glare of death because Kelly earlier switched her vote from Jessie to Zack.  “I voted for Gilligan,” Kelly assures her.)  It turns out that Belding was lying about the trip being canceled but Zack now feels so guilty that he decides to resign as student council president so that Jessie can have the job.  Jessie would be student council president for the entirety of her time at Bayside but let’s never forget that she owed it all to Zack.

This episode was dumb but I have to admit that I enjoyed watching it.  I guess that’s the power of nostalgia.  As soon as I saw Jessie putting up her campaign poster, I felt like I was back in college, looking for an excuse not to study.

One final note: In later episodes, the show’s hairstylists and costuming supervisors sometimes seemed to have it out for Elizabeth Berkley.  I assume that was because it was eventually decided that Kelly would be the “pretty one.”  Jessie’s hair looks really good in this episode.  Good for her.