Was Hang Time a better show before Peter Engel was the showrunner

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Beginning in Season 2? To give you a better idea:

By the time that Peter Engel got his hands on it its second season, Hang Time was no longer the smiling, heartfelt teen sitcom it was in its first series. In fact, I had rarely seen any episodes beyond the first season. I had seen most of the episodes of the first season working at my father’s video store in the fall of 1995.

The premise behind “Hang Time” was pretty simple: A female basketball playing character joined a high school boys team as there was no girls team in the small school district, due to Title IX or a Supreme Court decision or something. The logic of producing the programme was to have another Saved By The Bell hit on NBC’s hands for their “TNBC” teen-themed Saturday morning programme line-up. To make sure that this would have success, however, was to have Saved By The Bell’s producer, Peter Engel, take over from the second season onward.

The first series’ theme song painted the feeling of the show as though it were The O.C. The subplot story arc was of the male protagonist, Chris Atwater, to develop a romantic relationship with female protagonist, Julie Connor, In the first season, this happened, although it took up to episode 10 of 13 for it to reach its apex. Episode plots were what you’d expect: The novelty of having a girl on an all boys team, a new direction for play, passing a history test to qualify academically as a player. But what I enjoy most about watching episodes of the first season on YouTube is that the first season of this show is like taking a time machine back to the 1990s.

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TV Tropes has a summary of the differences between Season 1 and the remaining Peter Engel produced seasons:

Early Installment Weirdness: The first season feels like a subtly different show, compared to the last five. That season, The Sport Shack was an occasionally seen hangout and the teen characters were also seen hanging out together in an outdoor cafeteria at the school in certain scenes, both of which were dropped in the retool. There wasn't the dynamic of the coach, Julie and one of the male players being more sane than the others as everyone was pretty down-to-earth... except maybe Mary Beth, who had character traits that put her somewhere between the Lovable Alpha Bitch and just the Alpha Bitch. Coach Fuller didn't have a Hair-Trigger Temper. Danny was more of a dorky type than the snarker. The humor was also fully down-to-earth and more staid, compared to the wacky and very special episode plots that later seasons incorporated, making it mesh differently from the rest of the TNBC lineup.

Retool: Hang Time got retooled for its second season: Vince, Teddy and Josh join the Deering High Tornados, ushering in the revolving door casting that continued for the rest of the series. The show's humor becomes more akin to that of its TNBC stablemates, with the incorporation of some wackier plots. Also, the show abandoned the original theme song and credits sequence, in favor of a more rock-fueled Expository Theme Tune and the bouncing basketball opening. All of these changes came under the appointment of Peter Engel as its showrunner.

[irehtman]

This was sitcoms based on a true story on how female athletics became increasing popular in real life and its all started off in basketball. But the multi-cast changes aren't quite notorious yet as SBTB new class' multi-case changes for two reasons, TBH, IMO:

1.) Main character is always constant.
2.) Supporting female stays being constant for being the well-know experienced funniest.

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Somebody else noted that the episode structure for Hang Time was very formulaic. I don't know for sure if it was always like that or it became more prominent when Peter Engel took over in Season 2. But a typical episode and season of Hang Time would go like this: The team's the best, the team starts slacking off, the team gets cocky and thinks they'll win no matter what, the team falls far behind in the championship game but gets a pep talk from Coach and wins at the last second.

[MattLej1983]

They won a state title in season 1, missed the playoffs in season 2, won state in season 3 and were state finalists in season 4 and 5 and season 6 was short and I think involved very little basketball at all.

Season 5 and 6 were shot at the same time.

I always wondered how it made sense for Julie and Mary Beth to be there for 6 seasons in high school while others moved on to college haha.

I find season 3 is the strongest and my favorite, and then Season 1 and 2 were pretty close for me personally. Season 4 and onward it was not as great.

[irehtman]

Julie is a main character, while Mary Beth is a the funniest supporting character, that's why both were constant until the end.

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Originally Posted by MattLej1983

They won a state title in season 1, missed the playoffs in season 2, won state in season 3 and were state finalists in season 4 and 5 and season 6 was short and I think involved very little basketball at all.

Season 5 and 6 were shot at the same time.

I always wondered how it made sense for Julie and Mary Beth to be there for 6 seasons in high school while others moved on to college haha.

I find season 3 is the strongest and my favorite, and then Season 1 and 2 were pretty close for me personally. Season 4 and onward it was not as great.

This is probably a flimsy attempt at an explanation, but two seasons of a weekly, episodic television show (in particular, a sitcom) back to back, in my head-canon, represents a full-calendar year in real time.

[irehtman]

But at least, it's tolerable that:

1.) There's no single discrimination incident occurring in the entire Hang Time crewmember group, unlike the original Saved By The Bell crewmember group.

2.) The notorious cast changes are occurring most on only the supporting cast, which is safe enough.