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 third season.
Episode 3.1 “Welcome to Bayside”
(Dir by Don Barnhart, originally aired on September 9th, 1995)
It’s time to start another school year at Bayside High School. Screech is back as Mr. Belding’s assistant, and the first thing you might notice is that, between the end of the second season and the start of the third, Dustin Diamond became an even worse actor than he was before. Screech now literally screeches when he speaks and, whenever he’s upset, he takes on a falsetto voice and starts to cry. Mr. Belding is starting a diet and Screech is determined to keep him from eating candy and junk food and, in real life, Mr. Belding probably would have shot Screech in the head.
The second thing you might notice is that only Tommy D, Rachel, and Lindsay are back for the third season. Bobby, Megan, and Brian are all gone and are not even mentioned in this episode. Instead, a group of students have transferred from Valley High to Bayside. And luckily, three of them seem like they can perfectly step into the shoes left behind by Brian, Megan, and Bobby.
Ryan Parker (Richard Lee Jackson) is a blonde con artist who always has a scheme going. Hey, that’s just like Zack, Scott, and Brian! When Ryan went to Valley, he was infamous for TPing the halls of Bayside. He swears that he’s a Bayside Tiger now. He also has a rush on Lindsay, despite the fact that Tommy D has already told Rachel that he hopes to get another chance to be her boyfriend. Wow, that’s pretty much the same thing that happened when Scott was at the school. Whatever happened to Scott?
Maria Lopez (Samantha Becker) was the head cheerleader at Valley and now she wants to be the head cheerleader at Bayside! Maria is tough and outspoken, and obviously she was named after Mario Lopez. Maria is unique in that, unlike her season 3 classmates, she will actually end up sticking with the show until the final episode. No escape for Maria.
R.J. Collins (Salim Grant) likes to DJ and everyone calls him “Hollywood” because this is a Peter Engel sitcom.
Tommy D and Rachel don’t want a bunch of Valley kids going to their school. However, Ryan, Maria, and RJ have schemes of their own. For instance, Ryan and Hollywood give a copy of Rachel’s diary to Screech and Belding and they are shocked to discover that Rachel wrote about how much she disliked Bayside. When it comes time to pick a new head cheerleader, they pick Maria because at least Maria cares about her school! However, what Belding and Screech are too dumb to figure out is that the diary was a forgery!
(Why are Screech and Belding judging the cheerleader tryouts? Where is the cheerleading coach?)
Tommy D retaliates by TPing the halls and framing Ryan. With a fight brewing in the hallway, Ryan finally admits to forging the diary and Tommy admits to framing Ryan. Belding and Screech cancel the results of the cheerleader tryouts. But how can Belding and Screech bring the school together?
At the welcome back dance, Belding divides the gym in half. Valley transfers are confined to one side and the Bayside regulars are confined to the other. This causes everyone to magically see how foolish they’ve been. Unity rules! Yay!
This episode was dumb but important. It was important because Ryan Parker and Maria Lopez are destined to become the two most important characters on the show. Richard Lee Jackson will stick around for three seasons and, of the various Zack Morris clones who wandered through Saved by the Bell: The New Class, he’ll come the closest to actually capturing that old Gosselaar magic. Samantha Becker will stay with the show until the end. She’ll give the series the continuity that it’s been lacking.
The third season is the season in which The New Class finally came into its own. Let’s see how things play out.
