The Sun Always Shines on T.V.: If Only...

...they ended Scrubs with season 8 and called season 9 something else.

Scrubs was a great show, make no mistake about it. The writing was quick, the acting was superb, and there were so many twists that you didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Season 8 was the first season on ABC and towards the end of the season it was almost a guarantee that Scrubs was done. So what did they do? Simply make possibly the best series finale episode ever! I talked about it after it aired here. Just watch the final scenes, if you were a fan of Scrubs there is now way you could watch this without getting a little teary eyed.

JD finally hearing Dr. Cox share his feelings about him;


JD remembering the people of Sacred Heart;


Finally, JD's vision of the future;


Freakin awesome stuff there. That's how you end a show. The music, the projection of his future on his face and camera work...perfect. I would be hard pressed to come up with a better series finale. Well, as I mentioned before, Scrubs continued on for one more season...unfortunately.

Season 9 had it's moments, but when you watch that and then watch something like this;

oh man...how bad was that? Seriously, moving to a med school? Just call it something else. Not Scrubs. There was no JD after 6 episodes, no Carla, no Janitor, no Ted, no Todd (besides bit parts), no Kelso (for the most part), not a lot of Elliot, no Keith...just Turk and Cox. Cox changed right away by taking a protege, which went against everything we knew about him for 8 seasons.

The new doctors weren't too bad. Cole was probably the funniest just cause he was so out there. Drew was a combination of JD (sensitive) and Cox (sense of humor & attitude). Lucy was the new JD, but she was more of an annoying Elliot. Jo was a leftover from season 8 and she was solid in her role.

Could this have made it as a different show? Who knows. But more than anything it sort of tarnished the previous 8 seasons of Scrubs. It lacked so much of what we had come to love, but taken by itself it isn't too bad. So my recommendation? Watch it, but forget everything you loved about Scrubs and expected to see again. Kind of like Battlestar Galactica, the new one was good, but you first had to forget everything about the original.

The Sun Always Shines on T.V.: Scrubs - Med School

So way back in May I talked about Scrubs' season (series at the time) finale. There was little chance of a spin off because Zach Braff (J.D.) had said he was moving on. Well, something happened and Scrubs Season 9 was a go.

I was interested in this because I read some interviews about just how much the show was changing. Gone was Carla, the Janitor, Ted, and for most of the season J.D. and Elliot. How could a show that was built on an ensemble cast survive? Oh I forgot the biggest change, the hospital was gone and now they were professors at med school.

I mentioned last May about the dangers of continuing a show after the main start left ala Spin City. It's a hard act to follow. They learned by changing the setting and the shows creator tried to change the name to Scrubs: Med School. ABC said no, but on the title screen after it flashes Scrubs, med school does appear in the corner.

So what is the new show like? Well the new show focuses on Lucy, Drew, and Cole. Jo (from season 8) returns and does a great job. I would have liked to have seen the other interns from season 8 return (Sunny does show up in one episode), but they rebooted completely. Watching the first 4 -5 episodes is painful, it was like watching Spin City all over again. I couldn't get past no Janitor or Ted. Even the new building distracted me. The writers did a nice job of establishing the new characters and I think that the only one that worked right away was Drew. He reminds me of a young Dr. Cox at times. Lucy is supposed to be a combination of J.D. and Elliot. While Drew is totally new, a white kid who thinks he cool with his ghetto slang. It was really annoying at first, but now it works. Unfortunately, I feel like they made J.D. and Turk even more "flamboyant".

After the first few "awkward" episodes, the show is starting to hit its stride. The last 3 episodes are great. Watching Lucy realize she likes Cole was classic Scrubs. Having Cox's wife, Jordan, return was great as well. I really think this show can be a success like Spin City was for the next 3-4 years. Unfortunately, ABC is showing the entire season in like 5 weeks. That's right, an entire season in a month - month and a half. As I write this, there are only like 4 more new episodes left. I hope it gets another season to get going, but I don't think it will.