'Saved by the Bell' reboot to honour late Dustin Diamond

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The second series of the Saved by the Bell reboot will pay tribute to original series star Dustin Diamond.

The actor, who played Samuel ‘Screech’ Powers in the 1989 parent series, died aged 44 in February after a brief battle with cancer, with executive producer Franco Bario confirming he’ll be honoured in the show.

According to Bario, he spoke with Diamond before the first series 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 two.”

Bario and showrunner Tracey Wigfield told Variety they plan to pay tribute to Diamond after his passing, with the latter sharing: “I didn’t know him and I hadn’t met him. 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.”

Original cast members Elizabeth Berkley Lauren, Mario Lopez, Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Tiffani Thiessen and Lark Voorhies will join together in the upcoming series to remember Diamond.

“At the beginning of this season, we already were coming into writing season two (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.

“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.”

Scenes from Diamond’s time on the original series will also appear in the premiere episode, which is set to debut on Peacock on Nov. 24, Bario confirmed.