TITLE: SAVED BY THE BELL: THE COLLEGE YEARS - THE ENTIRE SERIES

Info:

DVD Release Date: August 17, 2004 (Image Entertainment)
color/7 hours, 13 minutes
MSRP: $34.99
Number of discs: 3
Number of episodes: 19 (pilot episode plus all 18 from the series)
Languages and subtitles: English, no closed captioning
Special features: none

Review (out of 5 stars):

Video quality: 4.8/5
Audio quality: 4.8/5
Special Features: NA
Menu Navigation: 5/5
Overall: 4.5/5

Thoughts:

Zack, Kelly, Slater, and Screech are back for new adventures, new challenges and new friends at California U. Arriving at college, they realize that life is going to be very different. As Zack puts it, "Last year we ruled Bayside...this year we're the lowest rung on the food chain!" It's a time for firsts and lots of surprises. High school ladies man Zack gets rejected by a girl, star athlete Slater is now the worst wrestler on the team, Zack's former girlfriend, Kelly, gets a hankering for her professor and nerdy Screech finally starts getting the girls. Assistant Michael Rogers helps the gang through the rough patches.

This 3 DVD set features all 18 episodes of the series plus the pilot episode. Saved by the Bell: The College Years ran for a single season on NBC in primetime on Tuesday nights at 8PM in 1993-1994. The popular teen sitcom Saved by the Bell aired on NBC's Saturday morning lineup from 1989-1993 and was subesequently shown in syndication with an occasional prime time special. Four of the cast members returned from Saved by the Bell to appear on the series as they had graduated from Bayside High School and enrolled as freshmen at California University. Zack, Kelly, Slater, and Screech were joined in their coed dorm suite by a rich girl from San Francisco named Leslie played by Anne Tremko and a theater arts major who wanted to be an actress named Alex played by Kiersten Warren. Supervising them was Resident Advisor Mike Rogers who was played by former Los Angeles Raiders defensive tackle Bob Golic. Other cast members included anthropology professor Lasky played by Patrick Fabian and Dean McMann played by the versatile Holland Taylor.

Memorable episodes include the pilot where the gang arrives at California Univeristy and see that things will be more challenging in college than high school. The pilot aired on the same night as the Graduation episode of Saved by the Bell on May 22, 1993 and was the only episode with Essence Atkins played by Danielle Marks. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen would join the series in the 2nd episode when the series really began in September 1993. Rush Week (episode #3) saw the guys rushing the same house with the girls giving Screeh a "cool guy" makeover (note: Lisa Ann Russell appeared in this episode as a sorority girl, she would later marry Mark-Paul Gosselaar). The Rave saw Zack and Slater start a rave to raise money so they could take Alex and Kelly to Cancun. The show ended with Zack and Kelly planning to go to Las Vegas to get married. There was a TV movie, entitled Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas which aired on October 7th, 1994 that was about their adventures on the way to Las Vegas and their actual wedding. Notable guest stars included Gloria Loring in The Homecoming; David DeLuise in The Poker Game; Marsha Warfield, Jonathan Brandis, Brian Austin Green, Marv Albert, and Jenna Voy as themselves in A Thanksgiving Story; and Robert Guillaume in A Question of Ethics.

The cover art (shown above) features a photo with the cast cramming in a phonebooth. The back of the box has a California University Pennant on it with small headshots of the cast along with a short summary of the series and details on the set. The main dvd box slides out from the right and has the same photo as the cover art. The packaging is nice as it is a digipak that folds out. Scene Selections are listed on the back of the box. There are 5 Scene Selections for every episode - 4 for scenes and 1 for the ending credits which often featured bloopers or outtakes. The inside of the digipak features various photos of the cast and nice, fairly detailed summaries of the episodes with their original airdates.

Disc 1 includes the pilot and episodes 1-7, Disc 2 contains episodes 8-15, and Disc 3 contaisn episodes 16-18. The actual discs are multicolored and very basic with just the show logo on them and the disc number listed on a pennant. It's a bit strange that there are only 3 episodes on the last disc, it seems they could have spread the number of episodes more evenly on each disc.

The main menu screens feature various photos of the cast with a portion of the show's theme song playing in the background with various campus scenes playing in the background. There is a Pick An Episode or Play All Episodes button. When you choose Pick An Episode you see a yellow X which turns light blue. On the sub menu after picking an episode, there are 5 photos from the episode that you can choose from to play that particular scene selection.

The video and audio on this set looks very good. With a bigger primetime budget then the sitcom which aired on Saturday mornings, they seemed to use a higher quality tape. The episodes are presented in their original 1.33:1 aspect radio and the colors look sharp and bright. The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. All episodes appear to be complete and unedited with the pilot episode running 24 minutes, 30 seconds and all the others running around 22 minutes, 35 seconds.

There are no extras included and that is the only real downside to the set. It would have been nice if they had included some commentaries by the cast or the directors or creator of the show.

Overall, this is a nicely produced set by Image Entertainment. The packaging of this sets appears to be nicer as well as the overall video/audio quality then the other 2 releases of SBTB which were done by a different company. I was never a fan of the show, but I'm sure fans of the SBTB franchise will enjoy this release. Fans eagerly await the day when the original Good Morning Bliss series is released as well as the last seasons of Saved by the Bell and the Saved by the Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas tv movie.

-- Reviewed by Todd Fuller on 08/09/04

To order the DVD click below and help support SitcomsOnline.com:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002EJ7JY/ref=nosim/happydaysonline

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