10 Resurrected TV Shows That Should’ve Stayed Dead
5. Saved By The Bell
Saved By The Bell was never a good show by any sane definition of the word. It was a low budget wacky sitcom about high school that was written by old men for children several years away from high school. It also had the worst continuity of any show on TV: A number of new girlfriends were introduced for the lead, Mark-Paul Gosselar's Zack Morris, only to disappear after one episode with no explanation, including a homeless girl who MOVED INTO ZACK'S HOUSE WITH HER FATHER and the one off appearance of a younger sister of Mario Lopez's character, A.C. Slater. But it had its charm. Gosselar was legitimately talented, the plots were odd enough to be amusing, and once it entered syndication, it was seemingly on all the time. Kids' shows need to be easy to rewatch, and Saved By The Bell was incredibly watchable. Unlike most high school shows, the actors playing the students were age appropriate. When they turned 18, it was time to send them to college, and everyone graduated in the finale. The show then forked into two continuations/spin-offs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fnm7yd52bY Saved By The Bell: The College Years was a prime time sitcom featuring most of the students from the original cast. It quickly became apparent that the writing staff was not up to the task of putting together a prime time sitcom. Figuring out just how far the show went in terms of the characters' sexuality was a huge problem. It was farther than the Saturday morning show went, but it looked ridiculous in prime time, where Kelly having an affair with her professor was basically lots of kissing. The show lasted a season and eventually married off Zack and Kelly in a TV movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1jaAMkXvxQ Saved By The Bell: The New Class was exactly what you'd expect, new students at the original show's Bayside High, eventually with Dustin Diamond returning as Screech to work with principal Mr. Belding in the office. It started terribly with the cast consisting of expies of the original show's characters and had incredibly high cast turnover. Oh, and it became an edutainment show. Sort of. See, The New Class started right before the U.S. Government mandate that each broadcast network must air a certain amount of educational programming. Early on, the networks were really lazy about it: Fox would air the cartoon Bobby's World with open captions because theoretically it helped kids learn to read, while The New Class had a heavy heaping of Important Life Lessons added to a show that was already at least sort of pointed in that direction. It wasn't a good mix. Improbably, The New Class actually ran a few years longer than the original Saved By The Bell, but it left none of the legacy of the parent show.
Formerly the site manager of Cageside Seats and the WWE Team Leader at Bleacher Report, David Bixenspan has been writing professionally about WWE, UFC, and other pop culture since 2009. He's currently WhatCulture's U.S. Editor and also serves as the lead writer of Figure Four Weekly and a monthly contributor to Fighting Spirit Magazine.
Saved By The Bell was never a good show by any sane definition of the word. It was a low budget wacky sitcom about high school that was written by old men for children several years away from high school. It also had the worst continuity of any show on TV: A number of new girlfriends were introduced for the lead, Mark-Paul Gosselar's Zack Morris, only to disappear after one episode with no explanation, including a homeless girl who MOVED INTO ZACK'S HOUSE WITH HER FATHER and the one off appearance of a younger sister of Mario Lopez's character, A.C. Slater. But it had its charm. Gosselar was legitimately talented, the plots were odd enough to be amusing, and once it entered syndication, it was seemingly on all the time. Kids' shows need to be easy to rewatch, and Saved By The Bell was incredibly watchable. Unlike most high school shows, the actors playing the students were age appropriate. When they turned 18, it was time to send them to college, and everyone graduated in the finale. The show then forked into two continuations/spin-offs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fnm7yd52bY Saved By The Bell: The College Years was a prime time sitcom featuring most of the students from the original cast. It quickly became apparent that the writing staff was not up to the task of putting together a prime time sitcom. Figuring out just how far the show went in terms of the characters' sexuality was a huge problem. It was farther than the Saturday morning show went, but it looked ridiculous in prime time, where Kelly having an affair with her professor was basically lots of kissing. The show lasted a season and eventually married off Zack and Kelly in a TV movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1jaAMkXvxQ Saved By The Bell: The New Class was exactly what you'd expect, new students at the original show's Bayside High, eventually with Dustin Diamond returning as Screech to work with principal Mr. Belding in the office. It started terribly with the cast consisting of expies of the original show's characters and had incredibly high cast turnover. Oh, and it became an edutainment show. Sort of. See, The New Class started right before the U.S. Government mandate that each broadcast network must air a certain amount of educational programming. Early on, the networks were really lazy about it: Fox would air the cartoon Bobby's World with open captions because theoretically it helped kids learn to read, while The New Class had a heavy heaping of Important Life Lessons added to a show that was already at least sort of pointed in that direction. It wasn't a good mix. Improbably, The New Class actually ran a few years longer than the original Saved By The Bell, but it left none of the legacy of the parent show.