Saved by the bell rings in season two on Peacock

November 24, 2021 · By Chris Parkhurst

The entire second season of the Saved by the Bell reboot has dropped and you can binge all 10 episodes today (or this weekend). The series is a fun refresh on the old idea, mostly a comedy with a touch of moral messaging. While it’s not the far superior Degrassi High, it has been able to handle big topics with intelligent comedy.

Season two includes the episode “From Curse to Worse” in which Lexi (Josie Totah) suddenly needs to speak out when a competing school bans a transgender girl from its soccer team. Instead of rallying her fellow LGBT2Q students, Lexi attempts to write a play to solve the issue and all transphobia, no small task.

Lexi has been a main cast member since the season one pilot, bringing the trans student to life by also having a her star in her own reality show within the series based on her transition. It’s a good example of Hollywood actually casting properly, a trans actor to play a trans student, the character referencing the past transition but fully living as themselves within the show.

While the inclusion of a trans character is important and obvious by now, the core cast does lack a gay character. The writers are able to address gender, and not just with Lexi, but sexuality takes a back seat. (The original series also didn’t explore sexuality.) More importantly the writers allowed straight male students to fall in love with Lexi, because while queer, it’s not gay.

Saved by the Bell follows a group of students at the California high school, Bayside. In the revival series, a working-class school is shut down and merged with the over-privileged Bayside, causing most of the conflict during the first season. In the second season the two groups have settled down with much respect, mostly. Season one premiered on November 25, 2020.

Originally on Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley were the only two original cast members to return, but eventually Tiffani Thiessen, Lark Voorhies, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar returned in recurring roles, with Lopez and Berkley appearing more given their roles inside Bayside. Thiessen and Gosselaar have bigger roles in the second season.