Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 2.2 “Zack’s War”

Posted on May 9, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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 Tubi!

This week, Zack goes to war! Actually, now that I think about it, he really doesn’t. This title makes no sense.

Episode 2.2 “Zack’s War”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 15th, 1990)

Bayside High School is now home to a Cadet Corps program. Led by Lt. Chet Adams (Cylk Cozart), the Cadet Corps appears to be the same thing as the ROTC but it’s called the Cadet Corps and despite all of the attention that it receives here, it’s never mentioned again after this episode.

Slater’s dad is in the army so he can’t wait to join the Cadet Corps. Zack jokes about never joining the Cadet Corps so Belding gives him 30 Saturday detentions …. unless, Zack joins the Cadet Corps and talks all of his friends into joining. Soon, Zack, Slater, Kelly, Jessie, Lisa, Screech, Butch, and Louise are all members of the Cadet Corps. That’s …. 8 people. Wow, that’s a really weak turn-out. Zack has a lot more friends than that! Seriously, if only 8 people show up to one of my watch parties, I usually end up depressed for a week.

Anyway, you may notice some new names there. Louise is the unathletic belle of the school nerds. Butch is an apparently sociopathic bully who doesn’t want Screech talking to his girlfriend. For this episode, I guess we’re just supposed to forget that Screech has always, in the past, been in love with Lisa.

The second day of Cadet Corps, Lt. Adams announces that it’s time for an athletic competition. He allows Zack to pick the teams. Zack puts Screech, Lisa, and Louise on one team. The other team is made up of Butch, Kelly, and Jessie. Zack says Slater can lead the team with Screech, Lisa, and Louise. Lt. Adams says, “Nope,” and he puts Zack in charge of the unathletic team.

Zack gets mad at quits the Corps. Luckily, Screech visits Zack and shames him. (Zack should consider himself lucky that Screech didn’t pull a knife.) Zack rejoins the Corps and leads his team to victory, somehow!

That’s the short version of this dumb episode. This is another one of those weird episodes where an authority figure — in this case, Lt. Adams — tells Zack that, if he wins an arbitrary competition, he’ll be allowed to skip class for the rest of the year. Zack wins the competition but, when Adams says he won’t be seeing Zack anymore, Zack replies, “Why? Are you quitting?” No, Zack, you prick — you’re quitting! Except Zack doesn’t quit for some reason. He’s proud to be in the Cadet Corps.

Needless to say, the Cadet Corps are never mentioned again.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 2.1 “The Prom”

Posted on May 2, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we begin season 2!

Episode 2.1 “The Prom”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 8th, 1990)

It’s time for the prom!

Wow, the second season really jumps into things, doesn’t it? Most high school shows tend to take the “each season is one school year approach” but the second season of Saved By The Bell opens with prom.

It’s time for Kelly to finally decide who is going to be prom date (and boyfriend), Slater or Zack. If the first season occasionally featured Kelly acting a bit flighty and, at times, self-centered, the second season introduces us to the new Kelly, who is in love with Zack but who also doesn’t want to hurt Slater’s feelings. This is also the Kelly who suddenly comes from a huge blue collar family. Kelly agrees to go to prom with Zack (and Slater, being awesome, accepts her decision with grace). But when her father is laid off from his job at the defense plant (“World peace has broken out,” he explains — and you can thank Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush for that! USA! USA! USA!), Kelly gives up going to prom because her family needs the money that she would have spent on the evening.

(Kelly, Zack’s superrich! Just have him pay for everything….)

Zack is upset, until Slater tells him that Kelly’s father lost his job.

“Poor Kelly,” Zack says.

“That’s right,” Slater replies. “Poor Kelly. Not poor Zacky.”

HELL YEAH! I LOVE SLATER!

Slater does go to prom, with Jessie. (This is an important episode for Slater and Jessie too.) Meanwhile, Screech asks Lisa to be his date. When Lisa turns him down, Screech begs her to just see a movie with him. It’s a zombie movie and Lisa loves it! But apparently, Screech has an issue with people who love movies because he gets mad at Lisa for talking too much and decides to go to prom alone. For some reason, Screech becomes the prom’s DJ. Meanwhile, Lisa bores her date by talking nonstop about the zombie movie ….. wow, this all feels very familiar to me.

As for Zack and Kelly, they do go to prom! They dance outside of the gym and it’s one of the few genuinely romantic moments to be found in Saved By The Bell. It’s also one of the few moments that captures the unique mix of melancholy and optimism that goes along with being a teenager.

The second season is off to a great start!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 4.24 “The Whole Nine Yards”

Posted on December 4, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989. The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi and several other services!

Today, season 4 comes to a close with an episode about two football teams, one struggling and one not. Care to guess which team is going to win the big game?

Episode 4.24 “The Whole Nine Yards”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on April 27th, 1988)

Charlie DuBoise (Dinah Lacey) is a twelve year-old girl who wants to play football. Vince Diller (Beau Starr) is the chauvinistic coach who refuses to allow Charlie to join his team, despite the fact that she can catch and she’s even faster then his son, quarterback Ricky Diller (Chad Allen). Instead, Charlie joins another team, the 0-5 Minnows. Who is the new coach of the Minnows? Mark Gordon, of course!

Ricky has a hard time accepting that a girl beat him in a race and, when Charlie approaches him in a totally 80s arcade, a fight breaks out. Luckily, Jonathan is there to break it up. Ricky apologizes to Charlie while Charlie has a gigantic wad of Kleenex stuck up her nose. The scene goes on for a while and Charlie never removes the Kleenex. It was awkward to watch. Seriously, that’s what nampons are for.

Eventually, Ricky gets sick of Vince and his win-at-all-costs mentality. Ricky talks back to his father and gets kicked off the team. Ricky joins the Minnows and he and Charlie defeat Vince’s team in the big game. Vince comes to realize that the game should be about fun and Ricky and Charlie go to the school dance together.

And so ends season 4 of Highway to Heaven. Shows about girls who want to play football are always weird to me because I’m a girl and I can’t ever think of circumstances in which I would want to play football. But I do think that if Charlie wants to get a head start on getting the concussions that will ruin her adult life, she should certainly be allowed to do so. The main problem with this episode was that Vince was such an ogre and such a terrible father that the show’s happy ending felt false. His son joined another team and destroyed Vince’s undefeated record. The episode ends with Vince saying he’s proud of his son but Vince has been such a monster that his words sound hollow. I’m kind of worried about what’s going to happen when Ricky goes home. Instead of putting together a football game, Jonathan and Mark should have been calling Child Protective Services.

This is my final episode of Highway to Heaven for 2025. Retro Television Reviews will be taking a break for the holidays but this feature will return! On January 8th, 2026, we’ll start our look at the final season of Highway to Heaven.