Tracey Wigfield, showrunner of Peacock's upcoming Saved by the Bell revival, says she hasn't seen The New Class spinoff. Saved by the Bell began as a different series, Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which aired for one season on the Disney Channel. However, after that, it was retooled into Saved by the Bell and moved to NBC. The show became a pop culture touchstone of the 1990s, lasting for four seasons. However, less attention was paid to Saved by the Bell: The New Class, a spinoff focused on new students at Bayside High. This was despite it running for seven seasons, significantly longer than the original series.
Saved by the Bell's popularity, even today, has been made clear by the upcoming revival series. It debuts on NBC's streaming service Peacock on November 25. It will feature several returning characters from the original show, including Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez), and Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley). Like Saved by the Bell: The New Class, the revival will focus on a new set of students, including some of the original characters' kids. However, it sounds like that's where the similarities end.
In an interview with TVLine, Wigfield and executive producer Franco Bario discussed the impact Saved by the Bell: The New Class has on the revival. Bario said, "We don’t really deal with The New Class [in the revival]...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." Wigfield went further, revealing she hasn't watched the spinoff show yet, though she intends to:
I promise I will watch it before Season 2 [of the revival], if there is a Season 2. 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].
Wigfield makes a fair point about just how much Saved by the Bell content exists. Though the main show was the most well-known, the world of Bayside High became pretty expansive when all was said and done. It also speaks to the savviness of mounting a revival now. Even if the new show likely won't be as iconic as the original, viewers looking to feel nostalgic about one of their favorite shows growing up will likely want to tune in.
Out of all the Saved by the Bell movies and TV shows, it makes sense The New Class was the one to fall by the wayside. As Bario alluded to, the spinoff featured many new characters throughout its run, with only Mr. Belding and Screech from the original show a part of the main cast. Since many actors from Saved by the Bell will be returning for the revival, but Screech isn't one of them, it makes sense the upcoming show can virtually ignore The New Class. Hopefully, the revival series proves to be a satisfying continuation of the original for Saved by the Bell fans.
Source: TVLine