Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 2.5 “House Party”


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, Screech’s parents are gone.  It’s time to party like Elvis!

Episode 2.5 “House Party”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on October 6th, 1990)

Mrs. Powers (Ruth Buzzi) and her husband go to Graceland for their anniversary, leaving Screech alone for a few days.  It’s time to have the boys over so that they can lip-sync to the Beach Boys!  Unfortunately, when the girls come over to laugh at the boys, a bust of Elvis is shattered.  It’ll cost $250 to replace!  Despite the fact that all of the main characters — with the exception of Kelly and Slater — come from wealthy families, everyone claims to not have any money.  You know who does have money?  Max Nerdstrom (Jeff Asch)!  Max also has a girlfriend named Violet (Tori Spelling), who has a crush on Screech.  (Or Samuel, as she calls him.)

This is an important episode in the history of Saved By The Bell, in that it not only introduces us to Violet Bickerstaff but it also establishes that Tori Spelling was bad actress even before she was cast on 90210.  (If anything, Spelling is actually better-cast as Violet than as Donna Martin because Violet was at least supposed to be awkward and cringey.)  This episode also introduced us to Max Nerdstrom, a great character who only appeared once but who should have been a regular member of the cast.  That said, it’s also obvious that the only reason this episode was made was so Slater, Screech, and Zack could do the Barbara Ann scene.  It’s all pretty obviously ripped off from Risky Business, just without the prostitutes and Tangerine Dream soundtrack.

How to raise the money to replace the statue?  Zack challenged Max to a poker game and ends up losing not only another $250 but also the Powers family dog.  If Zack had $250 to lose in a poker game, how come he didn’t have it to buy a new Elvis?  Seriously, don’t try to follow Bayside logic.  Jessie has to go on a date with Max in order to get the dog bac and Zack throws a party to raise money for the new statue.  Mrs. Powers arrives home early and announces that she told Screech that he wasn’t allowed to throw any parties.  Zack announces that it’s a surprise anniversary party for Mrs. Powers and her husband (who is apparently just sitting out in the car while all this is going on).  Why would a bunch of teenagers throw an anniversary party for a 50-something Elvis fan?

Bayside logic, baby!

It still a cute episode.

 

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 2.4 “Blood Money”


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, it’s time to learn a lesson about giving blood.

Episode 2.4 “Blood Money”

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

Megan is running the school blood drive but no one wants to give blood.  Mr. Belding tries to teach everyone a lesson by volunteering but he’s informed by nurse Penny Brady (Emma Caulfield) that he has high cholesterol.  Not only does Belding need to start an exercise regimen but he’s apparently too fat to chaperone the school’s hiking trip.

Not wanting the school’s butch gym teacher to chaperone the trip, Brian decides that Screech should be the chaperone.  However, Screech is depressed because he has a crush on Penny but he can’t work up the courage to ask her out.  Brian tells Penny that he’ll get everyone in the school to donate blood if she agrees to go out with Screech….

Ugh.  This is another Screech-is-in-love episode.  Dustin Diamond was nowhere near as bad during season 2 as he would be in later seasons but still, watching the previously asexual Screech date someone is not a pleasant experience.  Penny discovers that she actually likes Screech (why?) but then Screech hears that she was bribed to go out with him and he gets his feelings hurt.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE HIKING TRIP?

Seriously, screw the hiking trip.  Why is this school always sponsoring a trip somewhere?  Just give people their diplomas and stay out of their lives….

Oh no, Tommy D’s previously unseen best friend was in a motorcycle accident!  And he has a very rare blood type!  Only Screech can save him!  Screech gives blood, everyone apologizes for setting him up, and Screech agrees to chaperone the trip and to continue dating Penny.  I’m going to guess that didn’t last since Screech ended up dating Allison while working at the country club over the summer.

Meanwhile, some poor biker has gallons of Screech inside of him.

What an episode.  The whole problem with the first season is that the students were not very likable.  Now, the show actually has likable students but all of the attention is on Screech.  It’s like this show just wanted to fail!

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


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”


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”


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, 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”


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, 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.

  1. 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.)
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Whoops!  They forget to plug the freezer back in and $4,000 worth of food goes bad.
  5. Bobby can’t drive but still tries to cover valet parking.
  6. 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.

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


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 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.

 

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 1.13 “Running the Max”


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.

Today, we finish up season one of Saved By The Bell: The New Class.

Episode 1.13 “Running The Max”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on December 4th, 1993)

The season one finale of Saved By The Bell: The New Class opens with Scott talking directly the audience.  Hey, that’s something that Scott hasn’t done for a while….

When he goes into his Social Studies class (which is being taught by Mr. Belding because Mr. Tuttle is appearing on Oprah to discuss teachers who overeat), he has to pick a group  to join.  Lindsay says, “Hey, Scott, why don’t you join us?”  She says it as if Scott is still a relatively new acquaintance as opposed to the friend who is always a part of the main group.

Despite having made up with each other several episodes ago, Scott and Tommy D suddenly don’t like each other again.

Vicki suddenly has a crush on Scott again, even though that plotline was abandoned episodes ago.

Weasel suddenly has a crush on Megan, despite the fact that plotline was also abandoned shortly after the first season started.

Oh, and Weasel is again making jokes that sound like they were originally written for Screech.

Watching this episode, it quickly becomes apparent that it was meant to air much earlier in the season but it was instead used as the season finale.  That says a lot about how shoddy the first season of Saved By The Bell: The New Class really was.  The finale was an episode that was originally meant to air when everyone was still getting to know one another.  Vicki’s crush on Scott is a major subplot in this episode, despite the fact that the writers eventually abandoned the idea.  By moving this episode to the end, the show wrecks havoc on its continuity but then again, when has continuity ever mattered at Bayside?

On top of all that, this is a dumb episode.  Three businesses agree to let the students run things for a week.  Who would agree to such a stupid idea?  Scott, Tommy, Megan, Weasel, Vicki, and Lindsay end up running the Max.  The Max appears to be open 24 hours a day so I’d love to know how they’re running the Max and still going to class.  For that matter, how are only six students going to run an entire restaurant?  Anyway, long story short: Scott is a bad boss, everyone quits except for Weasel (so, do they all fail the class?), but then they change their mind after they hear that Scott feels bad about his behavior.  The gang hosts a banquet for the football team.  Tommy comes up with the idea of turning into a Country-and-Western-themed barbecue.  Wait a minute — TOMMY’S ON THE FOOTBALL TEAM!  Why isn’t he at the banquet?

This was a dumb ending to a dumb season.  Half of the cast was fired at the end of season one.  Robert Sutherland Telfer, Isaac Lidsky, and Bonnie Russavage would not return as Scott, Weasel, and Vicki for season two.  (Indeed, none of their character would ever be mentioned again, despite Tommy D, Lindsay, and Megan still being around.)  I can’t say that I disagree with the decision.  Telfer was miscast as the new Zack Morris.  Russavage never made much of an impression.  (In all fairness, she wasn’t helped by the fact that the show’s writers didn’t really seem to know what to do with Vicki.)  Lidsky probably did as well as anyone could with the role of Weasel but, from the second season onward, Saved By The Bell didn’t need a new Screech.  New students would take their places and they would be joined by a familiar face.

We’ll start season two next week!

Late Night Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell 1.19 “Slater’s Friend”


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, 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!

Retro Television Review: Saved By The Bell: The New Class 1.12 “Tommy A”


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.

It’s midterms!

Episode 1.12 “Tommy A”

(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on November 27th,1993)

Tommy D has got his driver’s license!

Everyone’s excited because Tommy’s father has promised to buy him a car and that means Tommy will be able to drive them everywhere.  Keep in mind, no one is excited for Tommy.  Instead, they’re just excited that they’re going to get a chauffeur who is too dumb to realize that he’s being taken advantage of.  Consider this your reminder that the first season of Saved By The Bell: The New Class featured some of the least likable character to ever appear on a dopey teenage sitcom.

Uh-oh, Tommy’s father is concerned about Tommy’s terrible grades.  He informs Tommy (and, for some reason, Mr. Belding) that, unless Tommy gets at least one A on his midterms, he won’t get his car.

The gang tries to come up with a class that Tommy could do well in.  This is kind of dumb as it’s already been established that Tommy is an amazing mechanic and that he takes autoshop.  He’s also a jock and therefore, he should do well in his physical education class.  The gang, however, decides to get Tommy an A in his science class.  Because the teacher grades on a curve, the gang tells the nerds in the class that they have the answers to the midterm and that they’ll signal which answer is correct by coughing.  By giving the nerds the wrong answers, they’ll help Tommy get an A….

So, to be clear here …. I mean, what the Hell?  Seriously, who comes up with a plan like this?  Wouldn’t the teacher notice that there are a lot of extra students in the class on the day of the midterm and that they’re all coughing in unison?  As well, it’s one thing to try to help Tommy pass.  It’s another thing to try to make a bunch of other students fail.  Not even Zack Morris would have gone that far.  (As I’ve mentioned before, the first season of Saved By The Bell: The New Class has been oddly mean-spirited.)

It doesn’t matter, though.  Tommy still flunks his science midterm.  Now, he only has one chance left to get an A and it’s in …. ENGLISH!

Oh my God, how difficult is the English midterm going to be?  Apparently, the entire grade will be determined by each student standing in front of the class and giving a one minute speech.  What?  What type of class is this?

Luckily, Scott and Weasel have a scheme.  Weasel dresses up like a janitor and he convinces Mr. Snavely, the strict English teacher, that it would be dangerous to enter his classroom.  Mr. Belding steps in to give and grade the English midterm.  Scott figures that Belding will go easy on Tommy and Scott is right.  Tommy speaks for less than a minute and basically says that everyone should just be themselves.  Belding gives the speech an A.  TOMMY’S GETTING A CAR!

And Megan realizes that she doesn’t have to play dumb to get boys to like her.  That was the episode’s B-plot.  It was pretty dumb and required Megan to behave in a way that was totally out-of-character.

Anyway, Tommy D is now Tommy A.  He thanks his friends for helping him.  Hey, Tommy, they just want a ride!

Next week, the first season ends!