Ranking Every Saved By The Bell Episode In Tiers Of Corresponding Steakhouses - Part 2
If you are unfamiliar, this is a series very similar to any great novelist. Similar to George RR Martin and his series of Game Of Thrones books, a lot of planning, tinkering, tweaking, and thought goes into each piece. Which is why Martin's books have such a long gap between them. You cannot rush greatness.
The debut part of this piece came out at Christmas 2019. LINK TO PART 1.
The premise is to rank every Saved By The Bell episode in tiers of steakhouses. You may ask how that makes any sense, trust me it makes sense. It's the greatest tv show of all time, and everyone (with a brain) likes steak. (PSA- If you don't eat meat it's you life, and you also have a brain. Everyone relax. )
Tier 2 :
Ruth's Chris
Now, I personally have had very nice meals at Ruth's Chris. I think it's reliable and consistent if you are out on the road. For example, I went to Atlantic City years back and enjoyed a very nice meal on a slow Monday night at Ruth's Chris. The food is solid, the place is clean, the waiters are courteous, everything is reliable but will never knock your socks off. That's where I sit with this tier of episodes.
Reliable, but not somewhere I would go out of my way to get to.
Edible, but not fantastic.
Good, but not great.
If it's 1am and I need to put something on to go to sleep on Netflix, and these episodes happen to play after the one I turned on, I will watch but I won't cheer. I will enjoy but I won't love. There's also a possibility of falling asleep to these episodes. Some will have their moments, and some are duds. However in order to tell the full story of this series, as well as telling the story of finding a good steak house, you must rank every episode and weigh in on every angle.
Here we go…
76 - Breaking Up Is Hard To Undo (Season 2 Episode 17)
Relationship squabbles hit Bayside. Slater and Jessie fight over spending the day at a football game or the ballet (side note- it always seemed like the Bayside kids had more money and access to things I did in high school. Who was driving them to these events?)
The boys put on a reenactment "play" at The Maxx (unsupervised teens having access to a restaurant after hours is a plot hole I will just ignore.) and tell the girls how wrong they were. It's an uneventful, un-charming, underwhelming episode. I'll watch it in a hotel room or when it comes up on auto play, but I have never gone out of my way to put it on.
75- The Election (Season 1 Episode 13)
I think as I listed this all out, I have grown to the conclusion that the early season of SBTB is unspectacular. This was another essential dud. Zack and Jessie square off in a student election. Zack runs only because the winner gets a trip to Washington DC, but the trip gets cut and then he must continue to run to prove the trip wasn't the only reason he ran. Except it was. Weird episode. Jessie does a weird thing where she acts like a party girl so everyone likes her. There's a weird musical scene in the classroom. Odd episode.We'll get to it more in depth later on but this show is lucky it threw 100 mph in the later season, because it started off walking the bases loaded and allowing a few base hits.
74- Slater's Friend (Season 4 Episode 23)
Odd little fact. This episode was originally slated for Season 1 then held back for unknown reasons. The kids look way younger than they actually were. I think they held the episode because it's the wildest premise in the history of the show.
Slater goes away and leaves Screech to watch his chameleon Artie. Slater gives an emotional speech how Artie is his best friend through everything because he moves around so much. At no other point in the series does Slater give off "animal guy" type vibes, yet this chameleon is his best friend. Odd.
Slater leaves Screech to watch Artie, who of course throws the responsibility to Zack. While studying with Zack, Kelly puts him under a heat lamp and kills him. Slater gets the run around when he returns until finally learning the truth - Artie has died.
The gang, in the most unintentionally funny scene of the series, throw a funeral for Artie.
File this under so bad it's good as far as an episode. No wonder they held it back from air for so long. With all that said, watching Slater in a dream sequence as a chameleon is something you can't look away from.
73- Screech's Birthday (Season 4 Episode 19)
Another episode held back from it's original intended air date (I'm sensing a theme here). Screech becomes a hall monitor after Zack sabotages Neil the current hall monitor and the ultimate loser of the series. PS- Do hall monitors only exist in the folk lore of school? Along with "permanent records".
Zack getting the best of someone always plays. When he gets the best of the most unlikable character in school… it always plays. The episode overall isn't' terrific, but has moments. It also shows Zack is always willing to risk getting in some trouble for his friends.
72- Screech's Woman (Season 1 Episode 5)
Screech is desperate for a girlfriend so Zack dresses up as a mysterious girl and goes on a date with him. Again, Zack always has his friends back. Some funny visuals of Zack in a dress, but mostly a dud of an episode.
Side tangent… this show really did start slow. It has some iconic episodes over the years, ones that everyone knows, funny moments, iconic characters, but even I the biggest fan on the planet, can admit the start of this show got off to a rocky start.
71- The Substitute (Season 1 Episode 7)
Cute Mr.Crane shows up when Mrs. Simpson throws her back out, and makes the girls fall in love with him. Zack and the guys feel left out and run him out.
I really can't stress how much of a dud these early episodes are. I'll give Saved By The Bell one thing though, they work in substitute teachers better than anyone. It felt like they worked in substitutes in a variety of ways and they always seemed to work well within the ridiculous plot lines.
Tangent - In High School my junior year, I transferred into a few different classes halfway through the year after switching programs. This resulted in me not being on the official list for roll call. Those were done in September and never changed, So when you had a substitute teacher they were provided with the old list from September. If you were slick and knew you had a sub that day you could just no show the class and they would never know the difference.I had this happen once my entire junior year during a last period and I stupidly never took advantage of it.
70 - King Of The Hill (Season 1 Episode 15)
See if this makes any sense, in the 15th episode of this show, they make it the first day of school. Zack and Slater jostle for the attention of Kelly.
A quick fact check shows…
This episode was recorded as the Pilot, however was not used. To explain why Slater arrives at Bayside in this episode, Zack explains that "I'll never forget the day Slater showed up" — this gives the impression that the episode contains a flashback. (Link)
Again, things don't have to make sense at Bayside folks. You just have to enjoy the show.
If you are interested in trying to watch the show in the correct chronological order, a nice little website has created a list of that for you. I think on my next rewatch I will be watching in that order if for no other reason than to not get irritated at the wild time lapses in the show.
A quick timeout to talk about Steakhouses and power rank some of the sides to order at the table :
1- Lobster Mac and Cheese
2- Thick Cut Bacon/ Pork Belly
3- Hash Browns
4- French Fries
5- Onion Rings
6- Caesar Salad
7- Mac and Cheese
8- Ceaser Salad
9- String Beans
10- Mashed Potatoes
You may disagree, that's my list and I'm sticking to it.
69- The Love Machine (Season 4 Episode 11)
This one is actually has a few levels to it, and was a way better episode than I recalled. Slater's girlfriend (trivia question… Jennifer is her name) from Germany shows up. Slater tries to rekindle an old flame, and Jessie goes bizzerk. To get Jesse off his back, Zack stages a fake date with Jennifer, but when the Love Machine (which is somehow just accepted that a machine like this was created in a high school class) shows that Zack has feelings for Jennifer, Slater gets pissed, which shows his true feelings in front of Jesse who gets pissed again.
The plot lines in this show were not Breaking Bad or Sopranos level folks but when they intertwined different layers to the plot was when the show was the best. Also, Screech somehow always screwing up the scheme was like running a power dive 67 times a game, you knew it was coming but you knew you wanted to see it again.
The only real gripe I have here is Slater being mad at Jennifer for "matching" with Zack on The Love Machine. What did he expect, Zack was the most sought after man in Bayside at that time, and Bayside history. Relax Slater. There were 3 girls you were good friends with in the whole school and all of them kissed Zack. Can you blame the girl for falling for his golden locks?
68- The Gift (Season 1 Episode 3)
A rare Season 1 episode I actually enjoy. Screech gets struck by lightning and can see visions of the future. Zack of course uses this to his advantage and bets Slater who will come down the hall first with Screech tipping him off. Zack ends up fleecing Slater. The wheels start clicking and Zack realizes he should amplify how he uses these powers. With a big upcoming test and the whole class stressing, Zack has Screech predict the three essay questions to study. Things go haywire when the visions start to get scrambled and Zack ultimately relays the wrong material to study, pissing off Jessie, Kelly, and of course resulting in him losing his bet of who gets a higher grade to Slater. A rare Zack "L" in the series but a reminder that no one is untouchable (a lesson that hits extra hard this week).
The teacher in this is the world's fastest talker. He's up there for one of the best one episode appearances in show history. The fast speech, the fear of giving brutally hard tests, and the plumber get up at the end makes him connect every time he's on the screen. They should have figured out a way to get him back into another episode. He's not as great as Mr.Tuttle, but he's probably the #2 teacher in the series (discounting Belding since he's technically an administrator) which says something considering he's on the screen for a handful of scenes. Truly does put up points in the short amount of minutes he's on the floor. A bucket-getter.
67- The Lisa Card (Season 1 Episode 2)
Lisa runs up a major tab on her daddy's credit card and with Zack's help comes up with the brilliant plan of selling her clothes during school hours in the hallways with an automatic device he somehow manufactured to open and shut the lockers (without anyone noticing) at the click of a button.
Before dissecting the episode plot, let's really examine just how insane it is that Zack is just assumed to have an engineering degree in this episode. Let's also not forget that throughout the series he can stop time, and my personal favorite has a cell phone before nearly everyone in the country. There is no sense in trying to figure out why this young boy can do these things, or the fact that he learned the skills people take years to obtain (like engineering). It's more likely to just assume Zack is an alien, or an evil genius, or a savant… whatever but it's less strenuous than trying to understand how Zack can do these things is to just say he's an alien.
66- The Babysitters (Season 2 Episode 14)
Kelly has no babysitter on a school day and brings her infant brother Billy to school. Gotta love the heightened security as schools now and full body scans at the door as well as rules banning being on cell phones in some schools during hours, security in every hall and cameras with no blind spots in any portion of the hallway, in any hallway on any floor in the entire building, yet in sunny California 15 year old Kelly Kapowski can bring an infant brother into school with ease.
All time teachers in this one… Ms Hatcher and Madame Oeuf.
Bonus points for Zack being the one who fixes Billy's diaper with Slater's t-shirt at the end. Of course she loved him.
65- Slater's Sister (Season 4 Episode 16)
A rare Tori episode win.
Slater's sister JB shows up (and after this episode is never seen again), and quickly draws Zack's eye. Slater objects, which gets in Zack's head, and then JB objects that she's allowed to date whoever she wants.
Conflicts are resolved at the Sock Hop where indescribably the gang is part of a singing group (Trivia : The 5 Aces) and Zack and JB go on to have happiness with Slater's blessing (again for like 12 seconds because after this episode JB is never seen from, heard from, or mentioned again). Hand it to the writers of this show, they went to the well for the group being a rock band (Trivia: Zack Attack) including an awesome cameo from Casey Kasem, and ran in back with new girl Tori and the 5 Aces. Who says this show was cutting edge in it's plot lines?
64- Video Yearbook (Season 4 Episode 18)
Two very problematic episodes will round out Part 2 here. This is the first.
Zack pulls a bait and switch with a video yearbook for graduating seniors and makes it into a dating tape (that's VHS for you kids out there) for neighboring schools.
Rank the unlikely here…
1- Zack and Screech know video tape editing skills in 1992 enough to pull this off.
2- When randos from other schools call the phone numbers they saw on the screen of girls they have never met the girls are interested? (reminder they have never seen the guys on the other end of the phone either)
3- Not one guy mentions he got the info from a VHS tape he bought?
4- Not one girl asks how they got their number?
5- Zack has access to an abundance of VHS tapes to make this happen
I'm gonna go with 2, 4, 3, 1, 5 in terms of the things that are the least likely to believe of these situations.
Episode also gives us the best timeout of the entire series :
For all you film buffs, any time Zack speaks to the audience is commonly knowing as "breaking down the 4th wall" in the theater and film business.
63- Running Zack (Season 2 Episode 13)
This one is a doozy.
All of a sudden Zack is a great track runner as is Lisa which is weird because Lisa hates anything but shopping, and also was a cheerleader in most other episodes.
A class project regarding ancestry is due which Zack phones in but does discover he has small ties to Native American ancestry. His teacher has a friend who can help him, Chief Henry. Zack shows up alone to a grown man's house with zero doubts because it's The 90's, and develops a bond with him so strong he aces his presentation and is absolutely distraught when Chief Henry dies the next day. Zack isn't going to run in the Championship meet but when Chief Henry visits his dream as a vision, it inspires Zack to run.
I try not to rely on this video series too much, but man this one is spot on. What a wild wild episode of nearly every plot line, including Jessie's problematic ancestry as well.
That wraps up Part 2. I know it may be difficult to consume this stuff and get enjoyment after my actions the last week, and I'll have to live with that. Some people will never be back in on me, and they have every right to do so. I do need to find a way of harmlessly entertaining people which is what this job is all about in the first place. I lost sight of that a long time ago, but I promise I won't lose focus again.