Dustin Diamond didn’t get to join his former Saved By The Bell castmates on the reboot/sequel series on Peacock before passing away from lung cancer at the age of 44 back in February but the show will pay tribute to his character Samuel “Screech” Powers. When the series returns for season two this month, the Bayside High School graduates will mourn the loss of their late classmate and friend.
Showrunner Tracy Wigfield spoke with “Variety” and revealed that the writing team has written a scene featuring the original core characters of Mark-Paul Gosselaar’s Zack Morris, Tiffani Thiessen’s Kelly Kapowski, Lark Voorhies’s Lisa Turtle, Elizabeth Berkley’s Jessie Spano, and Mario Lopez’s A.C. Slater, that shows them talking about the loss of their friend. Wigfield said, “I didn’t know him and I hadn’t met him. Just thinking about it as a fan, I knew we wanted to do more than just putting a picture of him up at the end.”
Dustin Diamond did not appear in the first season of the new Saved By The Bell but producer Franco Bario says he told Diamond before the first season of the show aired that Screech might be included in season two if they were renewed. When Diamond passed away, Wigfield said they all knew they had to do something to properly honor Diamond and the character:
“It would have been wrong to not acknowledge that in a real way and to not have our OG characters mourning this character that we’ll never get to see again. That, I wanted to put on the screen, but I just wanted to make sure we were being as sensitive as possible. There was a real guy who had people who loved him. You don’t want to make any jokes or talk about it in any way that might hurt anyone’s feelings.”
Bario also noted that the creative team was very selective about choosing which clips to use to pay tribute to Screech. Bario said, “A lot of what Screech was known for was being the butt of a joke or being an outrageous character and what we were hoping for was using the clips to show how important he was to the show, but also to the other characters in the show.”
Dustin Diamond played Screech on the original series, plus the show that came before it called Good Morning, Miss Bliss, as well as on future shows in the universe like Saved By The Bell: The College Years and Saved By The Bell: The New Class. Diamond also reprised the character in two TV movies featuring the gang. Diamond was essentially the face of Saved By The Bell so it’s only fitting that the new show is taking the time to honor the actor and the character.
Will YOU be watching season two? The second season of Saved By The Bell hits Peacock on Wednesday, November 24, 2021.