And who better to chronicle that beef than Lifetime, who have adapted Diamond's tell-all book, Behind the Bell, about how awful everything and everybody involved with Saved by the Bell really was. This coming from the guy who will forever be identified as "Screech" no matter how much facial hair he grows, I don't know how much of this we should believe. Anyway, an extended clip from the film has been released and this looks terrible even by Lifetime standards. Aren't these the same folks who gave us Grant Bowler as Richard friggin' Burton? Yeah, so you know casting isn't necessarily their strong suit and looking at who they plucked from obscurity to star as the 'Bell' class should prove that point. I mean, the kid they got to look like A.C. Slater looks more like A.C. Green than Mario Lopez, but whatever. They probably should've just called Lopez because that guy will do ANYTHING for a check.
So what the book suggests is that everybody was banging one another behind-the-scenes and there was jealousy between them rather than friendship. That plays out pretty obviously here with Lark Voorhees coming off especially bad, probably realizing she's the third-string hot chick behind Thiessen and Berkley...which she was. The clip shows a photo shoot where their various squabbles play out in silly fashion, like a push-up contest between Lopez and Diamond while Gosselaar shakes his head in disgust. Even the use of Bell Biv Devoe's "Poison" feels like a desperate attempt to tell us this takes place in the '90s. We get it.
Directed by...some guy, and starring Dylan Everett, Sam Kindseth, Julian Works, Alyssa Lynch, Tiera Skovbye and Taylor Russell McKenzie, The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story airs on September 1st. Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll do an "unauthorized" sequel on Saved by the Bell: The College Years.
The Unauthorized Saved by the Bell Story by Stuff We Like
