In the US: Thursdays, NBC, 9/8c
In the UK: In the usual places
Characters re-cast: 0
Major characters gotten rid of: 0
Major new characters: Maybe 1
Format change percentage: 10%
Number of babies due: 3
Here we are again. Six seasons of Scrubs. It’s comedy, but in a hospital. As per usual, it’s kind of hard to review a long-running comedy, since ultimately the only thing that’s important is whether you laugh or not. Scrubs still raises a reasonable number of laughs, but there’s a slightly bitter taste to the whole thing thanks to a “Braffisation” of the show.
So we have Zach Braff’s JD finding out he’s going to be a daddy. Now, okay, bit of a panic moment understandably, but he spends most of the episode alternating between effeminacy and outright cowardice – doing, in fact, a passable impression of Zach Braff’s character in The Last Kiss. Leaving a woman you’ve got pregnant in the lurch to the extent you refuse to talk to her? Erm, yes, that’s funny. Isn’t it? Kind of…
Otherwise it’s more or less the same as before. The other characters are becoming less recognisably human beings as the show’s gone on, anyway, so their continued existence as feed lines for comic situations isn’t anything new. Ditto the gradual retreat from insight into the tragicomedy moments of life as a doctor. In fact, there’s nothing really new here at all. No change in jobs, no change in staff. More of the same, basically.
So the show’s back but it’s starting to feel like it’s going through the motions. It’s funny, but no longer clever. If you’re new to Scrubs, it’s still worth watching if you want to be entertained. If you’ve a regular viewer, there’s nothing to be worried about, apart from the potential to slowly fall out of love with the show.
