Saved by the Bell reboot's Season 2 will have a "substantial" tribute to Dustin Diamond and his character Screech

Variety

Executive producer Franco Bario, who also produced the original series, tells Variety he spoke with Diamond ahead of the Season 1 premiere to “fill him in on the Screech mentions in the first season and how those may lead us to possible stories that would include him in Season 2.” After Diamond’s passing on Feb. 3, Bario and showrunner Tracey Wigfield knew they had to do something substantial to celebrate him as an actor and Screech as a character in the second season instead. “I didn’t know him and I hadn’t met him,” says Wigfield. But “just thinking about it as a fan, I knew we wanted to do more than just putting a picture of him up at the end.” As a result, original cast members Elizabeth Berkley Lauren, Mario Lopez, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Tiffani Thiessen and Lark Voorhies all agreed to do a scene that would have them remembering Diamond and 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,” says Wigfield. “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. That, I wanted to put on the screen, but I just wanted to make sure we were being as sensitive as possible. There was a real guy who had people who loved him. You don’t want to make any jokes or talk about it in any way that might hurt anyone’s feelings.”