As for how the new season, debuting Nov. 24, will honor the late actor, showrunner Tracey Wigfield told the outlet that though she never met Diamond, she “knew we wanted to do more than just putting a picture of him up at the end.”
Original Saved By the Bell cast.NBCU Photo Bank/ Getty
Wigfield said Diamond’s fellow original cast members —Mark-Paul Gosselaar,Tiffani Thiessen,Mario Lopez,Elizabeth BerkleyandLark Voorhies— were also “keen to do something” and wrote a scene where their characters reunite at their old favorite hangout spot, The Max, to remember Screech.
“At the beginning of this season, we already were coming into writing Season 2 [where] obviously Dustin was one thing, but we also were like in a pandemic and in general in the first episode, everyone was feeling the same sense of everyone understands how heavy this last year has been,” she said.
Dustin Diamond.Noel Vasquez/Getty
“It would have been wrong to not acknowledge that in a real way and to not have our OG characters mourning this character that we’ll never get to see again,” Wigfield added.
Last week, Peacock unveiled a series offirst look photosfor the reboot’s sophomore run, including a snapshot of the scene at The Max that Wigfield described.
She toldVarietythat she wanted to make sure the tribute to Diamond was “as sensitive as possible.”
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Trae Patton/Peacock
“There was a real guy who had people who loved him,” she said. “You don’t want to make any jokes or talk about it in any way that might hurt anyone’s feelings.”
There will also be carefully selected clips of Diamond’s character from the original series in this season of the reboot, EP Bario said.
“A lot of what Screech was known for was being the butt of a joke or being an outrageous character, and what we were hoping for was using the clips to show how important he was to the show, but also to the other characters in the show,” he added.
source: people.com
