Friends—not so forever! As previously reported, Lifetime is set to premiere the television movie, The Unauthorized Saved By the Bell Story, on Sept. 1. Now, Us Weekly has four exclusive on-set photos of the actors who will be portraying the lovable Zack Morris, high school sweetheart Kelly Kapowski, and the rest of the Bayside High kids.
In one of the photos, Zack (Degrassi’s Dylan Everett) is receiving attention from young female fans standing behind a barricade. In another, Screech Powers, played by Shameless’ Sam Kindseth, appears pleased as punch while sitting in a lime green vehicle.
The good times, however, don’t seem to last. Lisa Turtle (Taylor Russell McKenzie), dressed in an early ’80s and late ’90s inspired flower-patterned top and matching pants, seems down in the dumps while sitting next to Zack. In a fourth snapshot, Jesse Spano (Tiera Skovbye) appears more annoyed than “excited!” beside A.C. Slater (Julian Works) and Kelly (Alyssa Lynch).
The TV movie is loosely based off of Dustin Diamond’s 2009 tell-all book Behind the Bell, which shed a negative light on the fan-favorite series. Coincidentally, Diamond’s former costar Mark-Paul Gosselaar recently slammed Diamond’s work during a HuffPost Live interview this week.
“It is negative,” Gosselaar said on Aug. 6. “That I must say. Everything I’ve heard about his book is it is negative. I don’t remember those things. My experience on the show was very positive.”
“That’s why when people say, ‘Oh, you don’t like talking about it,’ I don’t mind talking about it, I just don’t really remember that time,” he added. “But also, everything I do remember was extremely positive.”
Gosselaar’s Franklin & Bash costar, Breckin Meyer, also chimed in. “I know Elizabeth [Berkley] and Tiffani [Thiessen] and Mario [Lopez] and everyone has nothing but like awesome [things] to say about that except for Dustin,” he said.
