Gone But Not Forgotten: Scrubs (2001-2010)
Warning, what follows is something of a rant!
For 8 years, Scrubs was one of my favourite shows. Set in the fictional hospital of Sacred Heart, this was a new and unique type of comedy that many people immediately took a shine to. It was written and directed well, had some fantastic characters with complimenting actors and also incorporated many original elements that made the show fresh and original.
The shows lead character was John “J.D” Dorian, played by Zach Braff, who allowed the audience to feel more involved in the show through the use of narration and many of his hilariously staged daydream sequences. Zach Braff was incredibly likeable in the role as J.D, with great support from the rest of the cast, creating a whole range of unique and unforgettable characters.
Finally, after 8 seasons, Scrubs aired its final episode which gave the show the ending it deserved, concluding J.D’s story at Sacred Heart. From that moment, Scrubs was gone but not forgotten.
Oh wait, except it wasn’t as studio ABC dragged it out of retirement, kicking and screaming, for another series even though the show was clearly supposed to have finished. I mean, the last episode was called My Finale, how much more concrete can you get? What’s the point of dragging out a show when the whole purpose of the last series was to conclude it? Why can’t you leave it on a high? Why? WHY?
And breath!
Those were my reactions when I heard Scrubs was coming back for a 9th series, not ones of excitement, ones of confusion and annoyance. I felt it was unnecessary as the show had been given a fantastic finish. However, my anger was suppressed when I heard rumours that series 9 would take the form of an all new show. OK, the idea of a new show intrigued me. So, mere months after My Finale I approached this series with an open mind.
So what did this offer us? Well, it was set in a medical school with new characters and situations. Things had definitely changed……Oh except for the fact it starred almost all the original characters, had the same music, had the same theme tune (or a bad cover of it), still featured daydream sequences, still had the same old narration format and still had J.D as the lead character! Yeah, this wasn’t a new show; it was the same old show badly disguised as a new one.
OK, when I said J.D is the lead character, he only appears in 6 episodes, but every time he’s in the show he immediately settles back into his leading character position. I wouldn’t have a problem with this; it’s just that it makes the big ending J.D got in series 8 seem superfluous and takes away the emotion from it. There was a new lead character called Lucy Bennett played by Kerry Bishé. Lucy acts as the shows narrator, who is somewhat unique and has a lot of quirks that are often represented in day dream sequences. At first she is overwhelmed by hospital life, but over the course of the show she grows in confidence and ends up standing up to her superior Doctor Cox.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, when you boil down to it, Lucy is basically a female version of J.D from the older series, that’s lazy writing. She comes across as a likeable character, but the problem is although the character has many similar traits to J.D, the writers clearly forgot to make her funny or interesting. The running joke that Lucy has an unhealthy obsession with horses, which gets very old, very fast and that’s all the writers seem to go with. Another problem is that there isn’t much of a chance for much character development as for almost half of the series she is fighting for lead character positions with J.D, and for the other half when she’s on her own, we are left pining for the pointless return of J.D again.
Another new character is Cole, played by James Franco lookalike Dave Franco. Cole is one of the laziest characters, in terms of writing, that I have seen for a long time. Cole is the stereotypical douchebag character, that everyone in the show hates, but we’re supposed to laugh because he is a self aware douchebag. Then something happens that causes him to become a better person, or we realise he’s actually got some dark or emotional problems deep down and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, this is a character type we’ve seen a dozen times before and we’ve seen done better a dozen times before, next!
We also have Drew, played by Michael Mosley, who is basically a young Dr Cox, constantly berating everyone and throwing in the sarcastic “I don’t care” attitude as a response to every other character in the show, you’d be forgiven if he picked up an old John C McGinley script. It’s easy to compare the two as John C McGinley is still a series regular, as is Donald Faison.(Clearly they’re the actors with nothing else to do, which is ironic, because neither do their characters.) Turk doesn’t do anything notable, but Dr Cox seems to have developed backwards, to the berating teacher of the earlier series. Some may say this is a good thing, but I’ve already seen that side of the character, seeing it again is repetitive, boring and another highlight of the lazy writing.
There’s also Denise (Eliza Coupe), who was a very funny side character from the last series and was bumped to series regular here. She was a cold hearted and blunt character who did go through some development when she entered in a relationship with Drew. This development highlighted the characters softer and more caring side……something that was already addressed in the last series anyway, rendering this story arc pointless.
Pointless, that’s a good way of describing the 9th series of Scrubs. It’s unsure of whether it wants to be a brand new show, a continuation of the old show, or a rehashed version of the old show. Everything seems to get lost in the mix and it loses sight of what made it a hit in the first place: comedy! My Finale ended the Scrubs on a high, but it was pushed over the edge and down into the dirt with a 9th series that ruined the fantastic way the show had been concluded. It was unfunny, boring and ending up being cancelled anyway thus emphasising how pointless it all was.
Overall I would give Scrubs (Season 1-8, the proper Scrub) a 4.5/5
However, for the pointless and irrelevant 9th series, I give it a
Let’s give Scrubs the ending it deserves, and ignore the existence of Series 9, because let’s face it everyone else already has.
David Parker
P.S: Did I mention it was pointless?
Pin It
){kind=link}