It’s not easy to launch a successful spinoff series, even for the most popular of shows. Sometimes they don’t succeed due to only featuring 1 or 2 core characters from the original, while other times a shaken-up premise gets too far away from what made the original so great in the first place. In rare instances, even when those core ingredients are still mostly intact, the show still can’t find an audience, and 32 years ago today, one particularly popular sitcom had its sequel series end after just 19 episodes.

In 1993, NBC thought it had another major hit on its hands with Saved by the Bell: The College Years, which was the direct sequel series to the beloved ’90s hit Saved by the Bell. Confidence in the project was high, as it was even aired in primetime, but despite several of the characters returning, the show was cancelled after just one season of 19 episodes. Since there wasn’t going to be a season 2, the story of Zack and Kelly’s marriage was wrapped up in a TV movie, which was later split into four episodes and added to the series in syndication.

Why Didn’t Saved by the Bell: The College Years Last Longer Than One Season?

Saved by the Bell is one of the true icons of the 1990s, and it was a Saturday morning staple for a generation of fans. That’s why once the series ended, it made sense that the show would launch some sort of spinoff series, and that’s when Executive Producer Peter Engel brought together several members of the original cast and created The College Years.

On paper, it sounded great, as the audience would naturally be growing up alongside their favorite characters in a new and more mature college setting, but the show would still retain the popular Zack-led hijinks that made the original so memorable. The show brought back Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zack Morris, Tiffani Thiessen as Kelly Kapowski, Mario Lopez as A.C. Slater, and Dustin Diamond as Samuel “Screech” Powers, but Lark Voorhies’ Lisa Turtle wouldn’t return until the final episode of the season for a guest appearance, and Elizabeth Berkley’s Jessie Spano never made an appearance on the series.

In their place were several new characters, including Anne Tremolo’s Leslie Burke and Kiersten Warren’s Alex Tabor, along with Bob Golic as the person trying to keep things in check in the dorms. The new characters had their shining moments, but there was something especially missing in the pilot, as that episode featured a third new addition in Essence Atkins’ Danielle Marks. She was only featured in the pilot, as Thiessen would reprise the role of Kelly from the second episode to the end of the series.

Having Thiessen back was huge, but while it certainly helped, there was still something missing without Lisa and Jessie in the mix. This was only highlighted when Voorhies made her return in the final episode and the subsequent film Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas. In an interview with The Wrap in 2016, Engel revealed he regrets not bringing everyone back for The College Years, saying, “I should’ve taken all the six kids to college. I should’ve insisted we take them all and I didn’t. It was my decision and I made a mistake.”

The show was also airing in primetime, and while that might have made sense in theory since this was a show aimed at a more college crowd, it would have likely done much better sticking with the previous Saturday morning slot of its predecessor. That’s where fans were accustomed to watching the show, and more of them would have likely continued to watch the characters’ college adventures if it had just continued in that same timeframe.

The series was saved from not getting a definitive ending despite the cancellation, as NBC greenlit a 90-minute TV movie to finish the story and act as the official series finale for not just The College Years but also the original series. At least the series got a true ending, and funnily enough, several of the characters, including Jessie, would return for the delightful 2020s reboot series and continue their story.

You can stream Saved by the Bell: The College Years right now for free on Tubi.

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