Saved by the Bell: The College Years:

Why was The College Years cancelled?

Last updated: December 1, 1997.

Simple, SbtB-tCY was cancelled due to its incredibly poor ratings. Like some other good shows I could name (Parker Lewis, The Torkelsons, Class of '96 and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. to name a few), SbtB-The College Years consistently finished in the bottom 5 of all primetime network shows for the week in terms of ratings. It must be said however that The College Years did average a 7.8/12 rating/share for the season, and it finished in 88th place out of 118 shows. Still, with these kind of ratings, no (Big Three network) show has a prayer.

So why did it do so badly? There are several theories.

One theory says that by putting SbtB-tCY up against Full House in the same time period, NBC was robbing The College Years of its natural audience (young kids and teenagers). This no doubt was a problem, for the people that would have watched SbtB on Saturday morning, were the same people that would have watched Full House on Tuesday nights at 8:00 pm. But this can't be the only explanation, because Full House started in the Tuesday, 8:00 pm time slot at the same time The College Years did. (Full House was on Fridays at 8:00 pm in the seasons before The College Years was on). Also, SbtB-tCY was tried out in a Saturday evening at 8:00 pm time slot, and it did poorly there as well.

Another theory says that the inconsistent airing of SbtB-tCY hurt its chances at building an audience (SbtB-The College Years seemed to be pre-empted every second or third week during its run). This was probably a fairly substantial factor too.

Some think that The College Years started too slowly before it built up some storylines. Originally, Zack was to pursue Leslie, and some think that the old SbtB audience didn't like this idea in light of the fact that Kelly was back. Perhaps, this alienated some of the audience from watching.

Perhaps NBC didn't promo The College Years enough.

Finally, some just think that a show like Saved by the Bell couldn't make the transition from Saturday morning to primetime. I doubt this is a reason though: after all, shows like Full House and Blossom did well in primetime.

All in all, we may never know why SbtB-The College Years failed.