Is Saved by the Bell: The New Class Considered Canon in Peacock Revival?
Time out! Who are these people?
No, they’re not the stars of Peacock‘s Saved by the Bell revival (premiering Wednesday, Nov. 25). And no, they’re most certainly not part of the original series cast. The students seen above were part of a different class — or rather, Saved by the Bell: The New Class, a mostly forgotten spinoff featuring Mr. Belding (Dennis Haskins) and Screech (Dustin Diamond) that ran for — get this — seven seasons, between 1993 and 2000.
To put it another way, that’s three more seasons than the original Saved by the Bell, and one more season than Good Morning, Miss Bliss, Saved by the Bell and Saved by the Bell: The College Years combined. (All 143 episodes are streaming on NBC.com.)
Seeing as how it ran for so long, and featured other characters from the original series — including Zack (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), Slater (Mario Lopez) and Lisa (Lark Voorhies), who appeared in the Season 2 episode “Goodbye Bayside” (see below) — we thought it was only fair to ask the new New Class’ creative team whether the previous New Class is still considered canon.
“We don’t really deal with The New Class [in the revival],” executive producer Franco Bario — who has involved with every iteration of SBTB dating back to Good Morning, Miss Bliss — tells TVLine. “I did the first three seasons of The New Class and then I left ‘the organization.’ The New Class was [practically] a new class every year. It wasn’t, I don’t think, part of the DNA of the [new] show.”
Revival showrunner Tracey Wigfield goes on to admit that she hasn’t even seen The New Class. “I promise I will watch it before Season 2 [of the revival], if there is a Season 2,” she says with a laugh. “I was pregnant, I had a kid, I couldn’t watch The New Class, too. But I went back and rewatched all of the original [Saved by the Bell]. I did Good Morning, Miss Bliss through The College Years, as well as Wedding in Las Vegas, Hawaiian Style and [the Malibu Sands episodes].”
Do you recall watching Saved by the Bell: The New Class? Or any particular episode from its seven-year run?
I thought The New Class only got one season oh my god how did it get SEVEN???
I don’t know, did this air on NBC or was this Syndicated? because if it was Syndicated then that would explain it
NBC!
It was TNBC. It ran on Saturday mournings as part of the Teen NBC Saturday mourning line up along with California Dreams & Hang Time. Wanna see Mario Lopez in another New Class episode check out Fire At The Max from season 4.
I must have blocked it out because I loved that lineup, California Dreams was my absolute favourite haha
I watched it on NBC and on USA. Right now it is free on the NBC app.
Because they changed so much of the cast each season, it was basically seven one season shows. Haha. They seriously cycled through kids so quickly and I don’t think they ever explained why they left.
College Years got 1 season. The New Class was a big staple in NBC Saturdays. It ran until they cancelled what they called TNBC.
Characters were changed because actors quit or were let go. The last two seasons had the same cast.
I’m pretty sure the last two seasons only had the same cast because they were really filmed as one season but aired over two years. That’s why most seasons had 26 episodes while seasons 6 and 7 had 13 episodes each.
They filmed the last 2 seasons together in 1998 to save costs and then aired them through Jan 2000
If Mr. Belding is retired in the revival, then maybe.
I vaguely remember this suckfest, but I had no idea it was on for 7 seasons. I would’ve bet my life that it was only one.
My guess is that reason folks don’t remember SBTB:NC lasted so long, also watched SBTB contemporaneously and had aged-out of Saturday morning tv during that period, anyway. I only know because several stars like Bianca Lawson, Sarah Lancaster and Richard Lee Jackson (the slightly older, and very similar looking brother of Jonathan Jackson) started popping up in primetime during the late-90s. I remember freaking out because ‘Lucky from GH was making out with Ally McBeal’, only to discover that I had actually known him from SBTB:NC back in the day and that it was still on the air!
I know the New Class gets a lot of hate but as someone that was a huge fan of the original, I liked it. Well not season 1 but once they revamped the cast and kept Ryan, I thought it was good. Eric and his singing was hilarious. Maria was my girl! Saved By The Bell has always been cheesy corny fun! The New Class had much of the same shenanigans.
The first season was nonsense while the gang was analogous to that of the original series. The gang in second season was not very bad with Bobby being cool although a goofball and a black Screech. The third was great with RJ looking too much of a Hollywood material to campare with Screech. Ryan was a true Zack analog. Eric who replaced RJ was too hot to be analogous to Screech. The final gang was very different from the gang of Zack et al. Memories. 😢
7? Oh wow I thought it didn’t even last one. And I watched every season of the original and the college years and movies
Bianca Lawson could still play in high school that girl hasn’t aged.
I have been wondering if that were part of the gang in Saved by the Bell: the New Class would ever appear in the reboot.
The picture of Saved by the Bell: The New Class is that of season 4. Along with Principal Belding and assistant Screech were the gang: Ryan, Nicky, Eric, Katie, Rachel and Maria.
That’s Liz; not Rachel.
I’m embarrassed to admit it but yes, I did watch all seven seasons of “the New Class” and while it undeniably pales in comparison to the original it had its moments of fun as well.
Watched one episode and it sucked!
Lol so what your saying is you gave it a real shot? I’m not saying it was great but you can find 1 episode of any series that sucks no matter how good the series otherwise was.
I actually watched the new class too and I really liked it
I enjoyed it as well. I don’t think I watched it faithfully back when it originally ran, but I found all the seasons on NBC’s website. I started watching it last fall. Started with the first episode of season 1, watched an episode or two a day until I made it all the way through. Unfortunately, NBC removed the episodes back in March of this year for some reason.
Brooo I’ve been trying to explain this.
This is a Mandela Effect. These are my exact words when I first found out about Saved by the bell the new class.
This series of saved by the bell came out of nowhere. I grew up watching all of saved by the bell. I’ve even searched it up and rewatched the series a couple years back and there was no New class and this year through this pandemic and from Earth 2 comes The New Class.
There’s literally no way that they would play Saved by the bell and just not air 7 seasons throughout the time it did run and I’ve even asked around. People around the world and I cant find 1 person who can actually say they have seen this through the running air time.
It took the spot of the original on tnbc, along with several similar themed shows for about 8yrs, as most people only watch saturday morning shows till they are in their high school years I’m sure you aged out, yrs5 to 8 the show was shared with USA network when it aired afternoon’s with USA high, USC’s international version of sbtb
What a blast from the past! I was in the target pre-teen age group when it aired, so I never really found the show to be too unrealistic or cheesy. The characters always seemed to move after a season or two. As others have mentioned, it was a launching pad for several actors. I distinctly remember Sarah Lancaster, a few years before she appeared on “Undressed” (another good “Before They Were Stars” show), and then Ellie, Chuck’s sister, on “Chuck”. I’ll have to check it out.
Best thing about New Class… Bianca Lawson 😍
TNBC was great in the 90s. I have absolutely no shame that it was a must see for my pre-teen/teen self. California Dreams was always hands down favorite, but SBTB:TNC was not terrible by any means.
I enjoyed The New Class. True, it wasn’t as good as the original, but I think if people didn’t compare it to the original but rather treated it as its own show it would be more enjoyable. The first season was my favorite. That season got criticized for being a copy of the original cast, but I think that may be why I enjoyed it. The characters of Scott and Weasel had potential to be the next Zack and Screech if they would have had 4 seasons.