Saved by the Bell: The College Years

I remember watching (and recording) the last episode of the original "Saved by the Bell" as a nine year old and seeing the special announcement during a commercial break that there would be a college version of the show starting in the fall. I practically counted the days until the series premiere, and I truly enjoyed the few episodes that aired. It was canceled not because it was a bad show, I think, but because the truth is that lighthearted shows like "Saved by the Bell" just do not belong in a competitive prime time environment. This show was ridiculed just because, what, it was getting beat in the ratings by "Full House"? Come on! Expectations were way too high. It would have been safe on Saturday mornings like the original, never mind that it was about college students. We fans would have watched regardless.

It's unfortunate that this show never found an audience. It was far and away the best Saved by the Bell incarnation to have existed. Much better than the original and The New Class. Provided, I was a little kid when the original SBTB was on the air. And I watched it. And I still occasionally do when it's on. But that's mostly nostalgia. It was truly a BAD show, and I never would have gotten in to it had it been after my time.

The College Years was a much better show in terms of both writing and acting. There's a lot of reasons for this. The returning actors had four years to grow in to their characters on the original show. So not only had they become better actors, they knew their roles well by this point. This show was meant to appeal to fans of the original, who grew up with the show. So these fans themselves were a little older. The comedy is a bit "older". Not in the sense of more adult or risqué. But that it was meant for mid-late teenagers, as opposed to the early-mid teenagers and younger that they were during the original. I'll delve in to that in the next paragraph.

Another factor was the different writing staff. I'm hard pressed to believe that this show employed the same writers. But even if it had, they definitely changed the writing style. With an older audience and a prime time slot, this show had to vary from the Saturday morning children's show writing style of the original. This show was MUCH funnier than the original. Much more believable, and with much less cringe-worthy moments. You know, those moments when you feel EMBARRASSED for the actors due to their dialog or the plot. It's just that bad, and you know it.

All in all, I thought this was a solid, funny, pretty well done family show. Was it hilarious? Was it one of the best family shows out there? Not really. But I thought it had it's moments. Many more moments than the original, that's for sure. Had it actually stuck around, I think it would have developed in to a much more likable show. I would give it a 7, which is maybe a little too generous. It was definitely better than the other two incarnations. It's just a shame that unlike them, it never found an audience.

I know that many Saved by the Bell fans were not as excited about The College Years. But you know what? I love Saved by the Bell and I also enjoy the College Years as well. It was a different kind of humor and more grown up for the kids of Bayside High. While there were some crazy questions like how we thought that Zack was supposed to go to Yale and Slater was supposed to go to Iowa, it was still nice seeing the gang back together once again for some more goofy adventures through the new experience of college.

Zack, Slater, and Screech are back and they're grown up and in college! They now share a co-ed dorm with three other girls: Leslie, Alex, and Danielle. Danielle soon "transfers" and Kelly comes back to join the guys and moves into the same dorm. They experience the life of being a freshman and having to be the small fishes in the big pond. We have somewhat of a replacement for Mr. Belding with Mike, the dorm manager. They once again experience different pressures of homework, romance, drugs, and trying to fool the scary Dean McMann.

We had a few interesting stories like the love triangle that happens between Zack, Leslie, and Kelly. The love story of Kelly and Professor Lasky, the sexy bachelor who all the college girls have a crush on. Screech has some sexy ladies after him. Slater isn't on top in wrestling any more and has a new girlfriend, their drama queen dorm mate, Alex. And one of the most wanted things by the fans, Zack and Kelly falling in love and getting married.

While the College Years is once again unrealistic, like how the dorm mates seem to have all the same classes together, which is a lot harder to believe in college. Slater, Zack, Kelly, and Screech sharing the same dorm was very unrealistic. The whole way the situation between Kelly and Professor Lasky was handled. But then again the Saved by the Bell series was never that realistic.

Now in my opinion Saved by the Bell: The College Years was never given a fair chance. I really enjoyed some of the humor in this season, I loved the relationship between Dean McMann and Zack, these two always killed in laughter. I think people are too harsh on this show, it's not Saturday morning any more, kids, it's prime time, get over it. Give this show a fair chance, it's a lot of fun.

I liked this show. "Saved By The Bell" had a hard time with the transition from daytime to prime time, but this show was a lot better than the original series. It was so far out there, but that's what made it great. I wish it lasted longer than it did.

Where I live, this show airs once a week at four in the morning, so I don't exactly make a point of watching it, but since I was awake, I decided to.

Actually, I remember when the dumb thing first aired, since I believe I saw the premiere episode. For some reason I watched--and loved--the monstrosity "Saved By the Bell," but even THEN I didn't like "The College Years." I thought it was boring.

After my most recent viewing of it, I still found "The College Years" quite dull. Many of the characters from the original reprised their roles: Mark-Paul Gossellar as the annoying "blond" lead Zack Morris; Tiffani Amber Theissen as "desirable" Kelly Kapowski; Mario Lopez as "athletic" A.C. Slater; and Dustin Diamond as Screech Powers, about the most irritating character on television. For some reason their friends Jessie and Lisa have gone onto other pursuits, so replacing them are Alex, some lady who looks in her thirties and has a whiny voice, and is suposed to be Slater's girlfriend; Leslie, who is so charisma-free I didn't even remember her existence until I saw her name listed among the credits; and the also charisma-free man who is in charge of their dorm, who is supposed to be like a "cooler" version of the high school principal Mr. Belding. The situations were also similar to the high school series. Selfish Zack cooks up a scheme in order to benefit himself somehow and wacky hijinx occur as he goes about fulfilling it. In the particular episode I saw, he wanted to take Kelly to Mexico, along with Slater and annoying Alex, so he decided to hold a rave and charge twenty dollars a head for it. Who'd pay twenty dollars to go to some party, especially when the purpose of it is to fund somebody's vacation? (Interestingly, an "I Love Lucy," with a very similar plot was on the same night, meaning "Bell" can't even come up with its own creative storylines. Plus, "Lucy's" was a lot more funny.)

Anyway, the big conflict is, where can Zack hold his rave? After all, they're illegal. Hijinx galore, as he outwits some Dean of Students character played by "The Pratice's" Holland Taylor(who probably hates to admit she was in this show.) Plus some subplot about Kelly recovering from a break-up with a professor was dull, and the prof. was very childish and unappealing. So was the show. I am not surprised it was cancelled after a season, because this is the epitome of some series that should have stuck to daytime TV, not tried its hand at primetime, where it was killed by "FULL HOUSE." What probably beat them both, or should have at least, was a competing series on CBS (since I remember this was an NBC show) for anyone over the age of 13.