Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 2.4 “Driver’s Education”

Posted on May 23, 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, it’s time to learn how to drive!

Episode 2.4 “Driver’s Education”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 29th, 1990)

Good Lord, Zack Morris is so insecure!

Even though Zack and Kelly have been dating since the prom, Zack still fears that Kelly will dump him when Slater turns 16 and gets his driver’s license. Slater’s already got a car. Sure, the car looks bad at first but Slater says he’s going to fix it up and, one jump cut later, he’s got a pretty badass red convertible.

Zack’s solution? If you thought Zack would respond by resolving to be such a great boyfriend that Kelly wouldn’t leave him, you don’t know Zack Morris! Instead, Zack comes up with a ludicrously complicated scheme to cause Slater to flunk driver’s education.

A few words about driver’s ed at Bayside:

First off, driver’s ed is one of the many classes that is taught by Mr. Tuttle (Jack Angeles). Last season, Mr. Tuttle inspired the creation of Buddy Bands. This season, he’s teaching the students how to drive and complaining that he should have been named principal instead of “Mr. Balding.” Mr. Tuttle was one of the few recurring teachers on Saved By The Bell and Jack Angeles, who was an attorney in real life, was a good comedic actor. It’s almost always a good sign when Tuttle shows up.

Secondly, at Bayside, students aren’t required to actually drive a car. Instead, they drive this thing:

Seriously, this thing has got three wheels and apparently, it’s not supposed to leave the classroom. How are you going to learn how to drive in this thing!? To his credit, Mr. Belding mentions that he’s often told Tuttle to get rid of this half-assed attempt at a car.

Zack’s plan is to take the driver’s ed car out of the classroom so that Slater can give him a private lesson. Slater will get caught in the faux car and somehow, this will lead to him getting kicked out of class. (Since it’s established that Slater already knows how to drive, couldn’t he just go down to the DMV and take the test regardless of the class?) However, Kelly asks Slater for a ride, Zack attempts to get Kelly out of the fake car, and the pretend car ends up crashing into a locker. Slater, Zack, and Kelly run for it.

In order to get Zack to confess, Kelly pretends to have amnesia. When Zack announces that he will not only confess but that he’ll also get Kelly the best medical care available (good luck doing with with no car, Zack!), Kelly says that she knew “Zack” would do the right thing. Hearing his name, Zack realizes that Kelly never had amnesia. Zack says that he’s not going to confess and it won’t matter because what’s Belding going to do? Flunk everyone?

The next day, at the start of class, Belding announces that he’s flunking everyone.

At first, Kelly stands up says that she’s to blame. Slater jumps up and accepts responsibility because Slater’s a soldier at heart. Realizing that Slater now looks a lot better than him, Zack finally admits that he’s the one who took the driver’s ed car out of the classroom. The end result is that Zack flunks, Slater gets two weeks of detention, and Kelly gets …. no punishment at all.

This was actually a pretty enjoyable episode. I mean, it was dumb but that’s par for the course when it comes to Saved By The Bell. This episode features a lot of Tuttle comedy and Mario Lopez once again outacting everyone else in the cast. That’s what Saved By The Bell is all about.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.3 “Let the Games Begin”

Posted on May 19, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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, we’re back at the country club.

Episode 2.3 “Let the Games Begin”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 17th, 1994)

At Pacific Palisades Country Club, it’s time for the annual competition between the members of the club and the staff. If the staff wins, the members will wait on them for a week!

Really? I mean, is this a real thing? Why would any club member agree to that? If I’m paying good money to belong to a country club, the last thing that I’m ever going to do is wait on the staff. I don’t care who wins the stupid competition.

It turns out that Screech is a very good golf player, which becomes an important plot point when the games end in a tie. The tie-breaker is a golf game between country club owner Big Ed and Screech. Big Ed tells Screech to either take a dive or stop dating his daughter, Allison. In the end, Screech can’t betray his fellow workers but Allison doesn’t care. She decides who she dates, not Big Ed.

Also, Tommy D learns how to swim (yay, good for him!) and Rachel says she’s going to quit her job when she learns her boyfriend won’t be coming home for the summer. (Her boyfriend was a member of the club and Rachel only took the job so she could spend time with him.) Brian, not wanting Rachel to quit, starts to send her poems that she believes are being written by her boyfriend. Rachel eventually learns the truth but she’s not offended at all. Of course, she isn’t. Just look at Brian’s apologetic smile!

This episode …. listen, let’s give credit where credit is due. Christian Oliver and Sarah Lancaster? They were cute together. As far as fake Zacks go, Christian Oliver was one of the better ones. And Jonathan Angel gave a likably earnest performance in the scenes where Tommy learned to swim. Unfortunately, this episode featured way too much Screech. Though Dustin Diamond is nowhere near as bad during season 2 as he would be in later seasons, he’s still way too cartoonish to be taken seriously as anyone’s boyfriend.

Seriously, can you imagine buying a country club membership and then having to wait on Screech?

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 2.3 “Save The Max”

Posted on May 16, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, Bayside Radio is on the air!

Episode 2.3 “Save The Max”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 22nd, 1990)

Uh-oh! Max is about to lose The Max! The land that the Max is sitting on belongs to the school board and, if Max the owner can’t come up with $10,000 in back rent, he’s going to lose the restaurant. As Jessie puts it, “our favorite hang-out is going to become a parking lot!”

Here’s the thing — so what? I mean, seriously, is it that hard to find a place to get a hamburger in California? For the most part, the Max has always come across as being a fairly tacky place. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone over the age of eleven thinking that Max’s magic tricks were worth watching. Even more importantly, why didn’t Max pay his rent? Max is an adult. He’s a grown man. Why does it fallon a group of teenagers to take care of Max’s problems? Pay your own damn bills, Max!

Fortunately (I guess), Zack has recently re-launched the school radio station. This is the episode where Zack and Screech discover the radio station in the school basement and Mr. Belding appears in a flashback as a 40 year-old hippie high school student with a thick mustache. I’m not really sure to whom the radio station is supposed to appeal. Zack pretending to be “Wolfman Zack” is cringe city. Screech’s mystery theater is embarrassing. Lisa’s gossip show would probably lead to multiple lawsuits today. Aren’t these people supposed to be in class? Are the other students actually okay with Zack and his friends being the only ones who actually get to do anything interesting at school?

The best thing about this episode is that it gives Slater a showcase. This is the first episode to feature Slater as a guy who is always confident until he’s either talking into a microphone or looking at video camera. Whenever he knows he’s being recorded, Slater suddenly freezes up. Slater’s awkwardness is actually pretty endearing and it makes him a more compelling character than Zack. With Zack automatically being good at everything, it’s actually kind of nice to get to watch Slater conquer his doubts and prove himself.

Do the kids — and Mr. Belding — go on the air for 24 hours in an attempt raise enough money to save the Max? You bet they do! But it’s not until Slater grabs the microphone and talks about how the Max was the first place that he ever felt as if he really belonged that the money starts to come in. I think one reason that the Gang was having trouble raising money is that all of the Bayside students were at the Max for the telethon. Seriously, I’m really not sure who was donating all that money at the end of this episode. I guess Slater has groupies. Hey, why not? He’s earned them.

Seriously, though — couldn’t Max have just paid his rent!? What a deadbeat!

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.2 “All Work No Play”

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, the Gang gets a summer job! Why would anyone want to work during the summer? What a bunch of losers.

Episode 2.2 “All Work And No Play”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 10th, 1994)

It’s summer time! (During its second season, Saved By The Bell: The New Class aired two episodes each Saturday morning. One episode would be a high school episode while the other would feature the Gang off-campus.) Mr. Belding has been hired to manage the Palisade Hills Country Club. The first mistake that Belding makes is that he hires Screech to be his assistant. Then he allows Screech to hire Brian, Bobby, Tommy, Rachel, Megan, and Lindsay as his staff.

Thinks quickly go downhill.

While trying to show-off for Rachel, Brian attempts to drive a golf cart with his feet. (“This is how I steered snowmobile in Switzerland,” Brian says.)
Assigned to wash and wax the car belonging to club owner Ed Harrington (Frank Bonner), Tommy D and Lindsay instead take the car for a joyride, which leads to Brian denting it with the golf cart.
The car has a dent and the paint job is scuffed. Tommy works out the dent and then repaints the car with Rachel’s nail polish. To help the polish dry, Tommy and Brian remove the car’s front panel, take it to the country’s club’s kitchen. and unplug the freezer so that they can instead plug in a huge fan.
Whoops! They forget to plug the freezer back in and $4,000 worth of food goes bad.
Bobby can’t drive but still tries to cover valet parking.
Screech is too busy falling in love with Ed’s daughter, Allison (Clare Slastrom), to be of any help.

Mr. Belding does the right thing and fires all of them. But then the Gang decides to throw a Luau for the club’s members (instead of the county and western barbecue that was originally planned) and it’s such a hit that Belding hires them back.

Seriously, what the Hell? Yes, the Gang saved the day but they only had to save it because they were so grotesquely immature and irresponsible in the first place. This was one of the worst recurring plotlines to appear on Saved By The Bell: The New Class. Someone would get a new job, they would totally screw it up, they would get fired, and then they would get rehired just because they felt bad after the fact. Personally, I think that if you steal a car, destroy a golf cart, and cause $4,000 worth of meat to go bad, you should be fired. I don’t care if you then put on a hula skirt and play a ukulele and and put on a little Hawaiian performance on a sweltering day in the middle of the desert. You’re fired.

GO HOME!

This episode annoyed the Hell out of me. I can accept a lot from this show but what I can’t accept is a plot where every complication could have been avoided by everyone not being a massive dumbass.

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

Posted on May 9, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

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.

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.1 “The Return of Screech”

Posted on May 5, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we start the 2nd season of Saved By The Bell: The New Class!

Episode 2.1 “The Return of Screech”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 10th, 1994)

After the disappointing reviews and ratings of the first season, Saved By The Bell: The New Class rebooted itself for the second season. Robert Sutherland Telfer, Isaac Lidsky, and Bonnie Russavage were all fired and the characters of Scott, Weasel, and Vicky were dropped from the show. (No mention was ever made of where they had gone. They just vanished.)

Suddenly, Megan and Lindsay’s best friend was Rachel Meyers (played by Sarah Lancaster, who appeared once during the first season). Meanwhile, Swiss exchange student Brian Keller (played by a German actor named Christian Oliver) became the new head schemer while Bobby Wilson (Spankee Rodgers) became the new annoying sidekick with a crush on Megan. From the start of the second season, everyone acted as if Brian and Bobby had always been there. As for Lindsay and Tommy D, they continued to date. And because Brian had a crush on Rachel, there was no longer anyone around trying to break the two of them up.

Mr. Belding was still the principal but now, he had a much bigger office with a window. He also got a new administrative assistant, an education major who was on a work/study program with Cal U. As you probably already guessed from this episode’s title, that administrative assistant turned out to be Screech Powers (Dustin Diamond).

Now, to give credit where credit is due, neither Screech nor Diamond are quite as annoying in this episode as they would eventually become. By the end of the series, Diamond was giving such a broad performance as Screech that it almost came across as being deliberately self-destructive. In this episode, though, Diamond just plays Screech as being overly earnest and too eager to please. He may get on everyone’s nerves but at least he’s not doing the weird voices or the twisted facial expressions that would later come to typify his performance.

As for the plot of this episode, it’s dumb. Rachel needs $700 so she can replace the jacket that she borrowed (without permission) from her mother. Brian throws a party and sells tickets to help her raise the cash but when it turns out that Bobby’s house is not available for the party, Brian tricks Screech into unlocking the gym and allowing the party to be held in there. When Belding shows up and demands to know what’s happening, Screech takes the blame and decides that he should return to Cal U. And, really, he probably should have. I mean, after all the years he spent with Zack, Screech should have been able to see that he was being manipulated. What a moron.

But Brian does the right thing and tells the truth to Belding. Brian and the Gang all get two-weeks detention. Belding tells Screech that the students respect him and that he taught them an important lesson about the telling the truth. I’m not sure how accurate any of that is but the important thing is that Screech stays at Bayside.

This episode was actually not as bad as I was expecting it to be. Brian is a bit more likable than the first season’s Scott and this episode didn’t feature any of the mean-spiritedness that seemed to typify so much of the first season. Even Screech was tolerable!

Don’t get used to it, though. The season’s just getting started.

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: Saved By The Bell 1.19 “Slater’s Friend”

Posted on April 25, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we finish up the first season.

Episode 1.19 “Slater’s Friend”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 28th, 1992)

Who killed Artie?

That’s the question that Zack, Kelly, Jessie, Lisa, and Screech are left to consider when Slater’s pet chameleon Artie dies. Slater specifically asked them to take care of Artie while he was out of town. When Slater returns to Bayside, both Zack and the girls attempt to fool him with a duplicate chameleon because no one on this show ever just tells the truth. When Slater figures out that Artie is dead, he’s bitter and he’s angry and he even disrupts Coach Rizzo’s (Frankie Como) speech class. Belding, of all people, emerges as the hero, telling Slater that it’s okay to be sad. In the end, Artie is given a funeral and the cast sings Artie Boy.

This episode has long had a reputation for being the worst episode of Saved By The Bell. NBC was so embarrassed by it that they actually didn’t air it until four years after it was filmed. In his highly-suspect autobiography, Dustin Diamond claimed that everyone was trying not to laugh during the funeral scene.

Well, you know what? This episode — as silly as it is — kind of works. If you’ve ever lost a pet, you can relate to Slater’s grief. And really, Slater having a pet chameleon makes sense when you consider the fact that he spent his entire childhood traveling from one military base to another. It’s not like he could really own a cat or even a dog under those circumstances. A lizard on the other hand….

This episode is actually a good example of how good Mario Lopez actually was in the role of A.C. Slater. When Slater says, “It’s just a dead lizard,” your heart breaks for him. When he hugs Mr. Belding, you feel Slater’s pain. Even in an episode that ends with everyone singing a song about a chameleon, Mario Lopez gave it his all.

Worst episode ever? Not hardly! We’ve still got the Tori episodes to review, after all. In fact, my only complaint about this episode is that Coach Rizzo was never brought back. He was my favorite teacher at Bayside!

Next week, we’ll start season 2!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 1.18 “Screech’s Birthday”

Posted on April 18, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Screech has the worst friends in the world.

Episode 1.18 “Screech’s Birthday”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 14th, 1992)

Screech is upset because all of his “friends” (and his robot, Kevin) forgot his birthday. His friends decide to make it up to him by throwing him a small party in Mr. Belding’s office. However, in order to use Belding’s office, they need control of the halls so they come up with an elaborate scheme to get hall monitor Neil (Jesse Wilson) fired so that Screech can take his place. However, Screech takes his job too seriously and sends everyone to detention, including almost everyone who is supposed to be at his party.

Oh my God, what is Zack going to do!?

Zack uses the PA system to ask that Slater, Lisa, Jessie, Kelly, and Screech come to the principal’s office.

Seriously, that’s all he does.

A few thoughts:

First off, the only reason that Zack his available to call everyone to the principal’s office is because Screech doesn’t send him to detention despite the fact that he catches Zack in the hallway without a hall pass. Now, you might think Zack has immunity because he’s Screech’s best friend but Screech previously sent Lisa — the girl he loves — to detention so why would he give Zack a break? Add to that, Screech is mad at Zack for forgetting his birthday. So, I would think Zack would especially be someone that Screech would want to punish.

Secondly, why couldn’t they just throw Screech a surprise party at Zack’s house? Or Slater’s house? Or the Maxx? Or anywhere other than Belding’s office?

Third, this episode does feature two of my favorite supporting characters, Neil the nasty hall monitor and Mr. Dewey (Patrick Thomas O’Brien), the burned out teacher. Sadly, this was Neil’s only appearance.

Fourth, this episode was filmed for the first season and aired in syndication as a part of the first season but, for some reason, NBC didn’t air the episode until the fourth season. It’s really not any worse than the typical Saved By The Bell episode so it’s odd that NBC held off on airing it for so long.

Fifth, always remember your friends’s birthdays. It’s not that hard!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 1.17 “Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind”

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Lisa Marie Bowman

This week, we have perhaps the dumbest 30 minutes of television ever.

Episode 1.17 “Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 23rd, 1990)

After breaking the school’s video camera, Zack and the gang need to come up with some money and they need to do it quickly! They see that a tabloid will pay money for pictures of an alien so they send in a picture of Screech. Thompson (Sean Masterson) turns up at the school to investigate the claim. Screech pretends to be an alien. Uh-oh, Thompson’s from the government and he wants to dissect Screech!

This is without a doubt the stupidest episode of Saved By The Bell that I’ve ever seen and that’s saying something. Everyone in the school — including freaking Mr. Belding — puts on a mask to show Thompson that he’s been fooled.

That’s not very nice, Thompson says.

Neither is telling a bunch of kids you’re from a magazine, Belding replies.

What does that even mean, Belding?

Seriously, I try to cut this show some slack but even when I was an occasionally stoned college student watching Saved By The Bell so I’d have something other to do other than study, I still groaned whenever this episode came on.

Did they ever fix the video camera? They should have let the government have Screech.