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 can be purchased on Prime!

This week, Screech is actually good at something!

Episode 3.7 “Check Your Mate”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 5th, 1991)

Bayside has got chess fever!  Screech Powers has advanced to the all-city chess finals, where he will be facing off against Valley High’s Russian exchange student Peter Breschnev (Matt Kaminsky), the grandson of a legendary player.  Screech fears that he won’t have a chance but then he remembers that he never seems to lose as long as he’s wearing the lucky red beret that Violet purchased for him.

Around the same time that Zack and Slater place a bet on the outcome of chess match, Allison (Hillary Hayes) shows up.  She says that she’s from a chess magazine and she wants to do a profile of Screech.  She even invites Screech to the magazine’s mansion so that he can swim in the pawn-shaped pool.  However, it turns out that Allison is actually a spy from Valley High and she’s been sent to sabotage Screech’s game.  Allison steals his lucky beret.  How can Screech win now!?

Usually, I can’t stand any episode that revolves around Screech and Violet but I have to admit that I do like this one.  Yes, Dustin Diamond and Tori Spelling are just as bad as usual (and Diamond really goes overboard with the goofy faces in this one) but, luckily, Mark-Paul Gosselaar and Mario Lopez are also present and they do some of their best work in this episode.  Zack and Slater, for instance, kidnap the Russian and tie him up in a broom closet.  Zack then pretends to be the Russian and forfeits the match after making one move.  Meanwhile, Slater reports on the match for Bayside’s radio station and he does so with just the right amount of earnest enthusiasm.  (Jessie: “And now the Russian is hopping out onstage in his underwear!?”  Slater: “What an exciting match so far!”)  Slater knows nothing about chess but he does know that he wants to see “that commie” defeated.  Amongst the guest stars, Hilary Hayes and Matt Kaminsky are perfectly cast and score some laughs of their own.  (“I’ll see ya …. at the Galleria.”)

In this episode, Screech nearly loses Violet when he lets his chess fame go to his head.  Violet forgives him but this would still be her final episode.  I guess dating a chess jock wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.