'Saved by the Bell' Star Tiffani Thiessen Reveals Why She's 'Thankful' After Season 1 of Reboot (Exclusive)

Saved by the Bell fans were ecstatic to hear the popular '90s sitcom would be returning for a reboot. But they were not expecting to wait so long to see it after the pandemic halted the reboot's production during its first season. While a slew of new cast members joined the series including Haskiri Velazquez, Mitchell Hoog, and Alycia Pascual-Pena, a few very familiar faces from the original TV series made their anticipated return, like Kelly Kapowski actress, Tiffani Thiessen, who noted that by the time she and her other fellow castmate Mark-Paul Gosselaar were able to join in with Mario Lopez and Elizabeth Berkley, the world began shutting down. But the moment had her expressing her utmost gratitude at the same time.

"It was not a normal start to a show," she said when asked what it was like being part of the reboot while discussing her recent partnership with Nutri-Grain on behalf of their "Getaway From Negotiation" campaign. "One, because they actually started the season before Mark-Paul and I even came on. [...] And then, because I was doing Alexa and Katie, Mark-Paul was doing a show called Mixed-ish. They didn't have our stuff until the very end. And then COVID hit."

She described the moment as "surreal" not just because of the initial shock of a worldwide shutting down, but by the time they were able to return — with their show being one of the first to resume filming in Hollywood — it was a much different atmosphere on set. "So we were supposed to shoot our stuff in March, I believe, when COVID hit and everything started shutting down," she explained. "So we didn't get to go back until September of last year to finish the stuff that we never got to start and to finish actually the season off. And we were the very first TV show to go back in Hollywood, literally like the very first one to go back, with really strict protocols."

Thiessen added how she was very "thankful" that she already had so much history with the original cast members because that was the only thing normal about the process. "So, as much as we were super excited and we did have a great time, I'm thankful that I had those relationships with Mario and Mark-Paul and Elizabeth because being on set after all of that happened, the protocols and the testing, and then distance, we couldn't be normal in that sense," she explained. Season 2 of Saved By the Bell is already in the works as fans eagerly await their favorite characters' to their television screens.