Patrick Thomas O’Brien | Through the Shattered Lens

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!

It’s time to start the school year! Zack gets ready for his first day …. wait a minute, hasn’t school already started?

Episode 1.16 “King of the Hill”

(Dir by Gary Shimokawa, originally aired on December 9th, 1989)

I’ll never forget the day Slater showed up….

For the longest time, I believed that this was the first episode of Saved By The Bell. I mean, the episode features Zack meeting Slater for the first time, Slater meeting Kelly for the first time, and it introduces all of the regulars. We discover that Zack, somehow, has a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Kelly in his bedroom. That’s weird and kind of disturbing.

However, I have since learned that, while this was indeed the pilot for Saved By The Bell, it wasn’t actually aired until halfway through the first season. That’s why we hear an older sounding Zack say, “I’ll never forget the day Slater showed up….” We’re watching a flashback. But if it’s a flashback, why is Zack talking directly to the audience? I mean, if the audience was there when it happened the first time, why would Zack be telling them about it a second time? For that matter, why — if this is Zack’s first day as a high school freshman — is he already a legendary troublemaker at the school? Mr. Belding remembers him from Good Morning Ms. Bliss but that show was set in Junior High and in Indiana! And before anyone says that they’re two different shows, allow me to point out that the Ms. Bliss episode were later reshown in syndication as Saved By The Bell episodes, complete with Zack introducing them by saying, “Here’s a story that happened in junior high….”

My personal theory about all this? Saved By The Bell was a Peter Engel show and, like most Peter Engel shows, no one cared much about continuity. Ironically, that sloppiness is a huge part of the show’s continuing popularity. People like me are still trying to make some sort of logical sense out of how Ms. Bliss and Saved By The Bell could both exist in the same universe.

As for this pilot …. well, for the most part, it’s not very good. Of the young actors, only Mario Lopez really seems to have any idea as to who his character should be. Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who would develop into a very good actor, overacts a bit in the pilot. He, Dustin Diamond, and Lark Voorhees were all still giving the same performances that they gave in Ms. Bliss and they didn’t quite feel right for what would become Saved By The Bell. Really, the only scene that truly works is when Mr. Belding puts on a sweater and attempts to “understand” why Zack is acting out before finally snapping as Zack makes a mess of his office. From the start, Dennis Haskins and Mark-Paul Gosselaar made for a good comedy team.

One final note: This episode aired nearly 37 years ago. Mario Lopez has aged, at most, ten years since then. He has got to have a haunted painting in his attic.

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.