‘Saved By the Bell’ Stars Talk Navigating COVID Storyline in Season 2 (Exclusive)

Saved By the Bell‘s cast and creators are picking up the pieces themselves as the students of Bayside High return from a sophomore year turned on its head by the COVID pandemic. Before Peacock’s reboot of the beloved teen show returns for a second season on Wednesday, Nov. 24, PopCulture.com talked to the cast and creators about navigating the real-life pandemic in the fictional halls of Bayside.

Showrunner Tracey Wigfield explained that ending Season 1 with a joke about COVID, she felt like the pandemic did have to exist in the Saved By the Bell world, but by skipping a year of virtual learning, the show freed the characters from having to dwell on it. “I also felt like our show talks a lot about real issues for high school students, and this is a big one,” she continued. “Kids have been hit really hard, especially low-income kids who maybe don’t have the same resources to do school from home that other kids do, so it felt wrong to not acknowledge it at all.”

“At the same time, boy was I fatigued of watching television shows where the doctor is wearing a mask and people are talking about COVID, and we’re doing Zoom school and stuff,” Wigfield admitted. “I just didn’t really want to do a season like that. So that’s kind of how we landed on episode one – we’re going to talk about it and then kind of not again.”

Mitchell Hoog, who plays Zack Morris’ son Mac, added to PopCulture that it was “a lot of fun” to act in a world that was “influenced” by current events without being bogged down by the real world. “I think everybody, especially this season and in the real world … I think everybody’s playing catch-up,” he said. “I think we’re all looking back in some standpoint with a little bit of grief and a little bit of ‘How do we catch up and make the times better than they were?’”

Haskiri Velazquez, who plays Daisy Jiménez, told PopCulture that she drew on her own real-life experience in order to bring more nuance to her character, “Going into Season 2, I think I took a lot of what I learned during the pandemic and kind of just imitated that on screen,” she explained. “Especially for Daisy’s character, because I felt even within that year I’m like, ‘There’s so much time that is being wasted.’ … But there were a lot of lessons that were learned, and I think it’s just being present in the moment and making sure that I make the most of whatever is in front of me.” Saved By the Bell returns with a new season to Peacock on Nov. 24.