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Scrubs was a Syndication network medical comedy\drama series created by Bill Lawrence which first aired from October 2, 2001 to May 8, 2008 and aired on Syndication for its final two seasons from January 6, 2009 to March 17, 2010, lasting for 9 seasons & 182 episodes.
Plot[]
The show follows the lives of employees at the fictional Sacred Heart Hospital (which later becomes a teaching hospital).
Cast[]
- Zach Braff as Dr. John Michael "J.D." Dorian
- Sarah Chalke as Dr. Elliot Reid (seasons 1–8, recurring season 9)
- Donald Faison as Dr. Christopher Turk
- Neil Flynn as the Janitor (guest star seasons 1 and 9, main cast seasons 2–8)
- Ken Jenkins as Dr. Bob Kelso (seasons 1–8, recurring season 9)
- John C. McGinley as Dr. Perry Cox
- Judy Reyes as Nurse Carla Espinosa (seasons 1–8)
- Eliza Coupe as Denise Mahoney (recurring season 8, regular season 9)
- Kerry Bishé as Lucy Bennett (season 9)
- Michael Mosley as Drew Suffin (season 9)
- Dave Franco as Cole Aaronson (season 9)
Production[]
The origin for "Scrubs" is loosely based on Dr. Jonathan Doris' experiences as a resident in internal medicine at Brown Medical School (which served as inspiration for college friend and show creator Bill Lawrence).
The show was produced by ABC through its production division even though it was aired by rival broadcaster NBC.
According to show runner Lawrence, the arrangement is unusual, at least for 2007: "The show is a dinosaur, on one network and completely owned by another" and, since it is now in syndication, making a "ton of money for Touchstone."
Lawrence confirmed ABC would have broadcast the seventh season of "Scrubs" had NBC refused to do so.
Main Crew[]
The show's creator, Bill Lawrence, was also an executive producer and the showrunner. He wrote 14 episodes and directed 17 of them.
Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan co-wrote 13 episodes during their eight-year run on the show, starting as co-producers on the show and ending as executive producers; they left the show after the eighth season.
Mike Schwartz, (who also played the role of Lloyd the Delivery Guy) wrote 13 episodes during the first eight seasons; he started out as a story editor and became co-executive producer in season six. Janae Bakken and Debra Fordham were writers and producers during the first eight seasons, each writing 16 episodes.
Other notable writers who started in the first season include Mark Stegemann, who wrote 14 episodes and directed two episodes during the first eight seasons; Gabrielle Allan, who wrote 11 episodes during the first four seasons and was co-executive producer; Eric Weinberg, who wrote 11 episodes during the first six seasons and was co-executive producer; Matt Tarses, who wrote eight episodes during the first four seasons and was co-executive producer.
Notable writers who joined in the second season include Tim Hobert, who wrote 11 episodes from seasons two to six, and became executive producer in season five. Angela Nissel wrote 10 episodes from seasons two to eight, starting out as a staff writer and became supervising producer in season seven.
Bill Callahan joined the show in season four, writing eight episodes from seasons four to eight; he became executive producer in season six.
Adam Bernstein (who directed the pilot episode, "My First Day") also directed 11 episodes up until season seven. Michael Spiller directed the most episodes, 20 during the entire series run. Ken Whittingham and Chris Koch both directed 12 episodes from seasons two to nine.
Comedian Michael McDonald (who also appeared on the show) directed five episodes.
Zach Braff directed seven episodes of the show, including the landmark 100th episode, "My Way Home", which won a Peabody Award in April of 2007.
In 2009, Josh Byce (a writer and supervising producer for the animated comedy "American Dad!") joined the crew as a new executive producer for the ninth season.
Medical Advisors[]
The show's writers worked with several medical advisors, including doctors Jonathan Doris, Jon Turk, and Dolly Klock; their names serve as the basis for the names of characters John Dorian, Chris Turk & Molly Clock (played by Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Heather Graham, respectively).
In the season eight finale "My Finale", the "real J.D.", Jonathan Doris, made a cameo appearance as the doctor who said "adios" to J.D.
In addition, the show creator said that every single medical story on the show was handed to them by real physicians (whose names would then be written into the show).
The show never used real patients’ names, but Lawrence and his writers would make sure that the doctors’ names were written into the episodes.
WGA strike and network change[]
On November 5, 2007, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, which put the production of the seventh season of "Scrubs" on hold. When the strike started, only 11 of the show's 18 planned seventh-season episodes had been finished.
Lawrence refused to cross any WGA picket lines to serve any of his duties for the show, so ABC Studios had non-WGA members finish episode 12 (which the studio had unsuccessfully pressured Lawrence to rewrite as a series finale prior to the strike).
During the strike, NBC announced that "The Office" and "Scrubs" would be replaced by "Celebrity Apprentice".
The network later announced that they would leave the show on hiatus for the time being and fill the 8–9 pm timeslot with various specials and repeats.
The eleventh episode "My Princess" was eventually filmed, although Lawrence was absent; filming of the episode was disrupted by picketers.
It was believed that Lawrence had tipped the picketers off about the filming schedule, although these beliefs turned out to be false as Lawrence quickly drove to the set to "keep the peace."
After the strike ended, Lawrence announced that the final episodes of "Scrubs" would be produced, although at the time, he wasn't sure where or how they would be distributed.
The switch to ABC[]
Amid strike-induced doubt involving the final episodes of Scrubs, on February 28, 2008,
The Hollywood Reporter reported that ABC was in talks with corporate sibling ABC Studios with the aim of bringing "Scrubs" to ABC for an eighth season of 18 episodes despite Lawrence and Braff's protests that the seventh season would definitely be the last.
Just hours later, Variety reported that NBC was lashing out and threatening legal action against ABC Studios.
McGinley confirmed that he had been told to report back to work on March 24, 2008, to begin production for another season.
On March 12, 2008, McGinley was also quoted as saying that the show's long-rumored move from NBC to ABC was a done deal and that "Scrubs" would air on ABC during the 2008–09 TV season as a midseason replacement.
On March 19, 2008, Michael Ausiello of TV Guide reported that although nothing was "official", the Scrubs cast was to report back to work the following Wednesday for work on a season "unofficial" as yet.
On April 28, 2008, Zach Braff posted in his blog on MySpace that an eighth season consisting of 18 episodes was under production, but that he could not say where it would be aired.
On May 7, 2008, Braff then stated that the May 8 episode would be the final NBC-aired episode of "Scrubs" which was followed by a bulletin on his MySpace on May 12th confirming that Scrubs's eighth season would be moving to ABC.
Season Eight[]
On May 13, 2008, ABC announced that "Scrubs" would be a midseason replacement, airing Tuesday nights at 9:00 pm EST.
Steve McPherson (ABC's President of Entertainment) also stated that additional seasons of Scrubs beyond the eighth season could be produced if it performs well.
In late November, ABC announced Scrubs would resume with back-to-back episodes on January 6, 2009, at 9:00 pm EST.
Creator Bill Lawrence described season eight as more like the first few seasons in tone, with increased focus on more realistic storylines, accompanied by the introduction of new characters.
Courteney Cox joined the cast as the new chief of medicine, Dr. Maddox, for a three-episode arc.
The eighth season includes webisodes and is the first "Scrubs" season broadcast in high definition.
Sarah Chalke was hoping that J.D. and Elliot would end up back together, comparing them to "Friends" characters Ross and Rachel (which has been addressed a few times on the show. In the early episodes of the season), they did rekindle their relationship, and continued dating through the end of the season.
Several actors who guest starred as patients at Sacred Heart during the course of the show returned for the finale.
The double-length season eight finale, "My Finale", aired May 6, 2009, and was expected to be the series finale, as well. However, it soon became clear that the show would return for a ninth season.
Season nine[]
On April 16, 2009, Bill Lawrence wrote on the ABC.com message boards that the ninth season of "Scrubs" was still "50/50." On April 28th, it was announced that ABC was in talks to renew the show for another year.
Bill Lawrence also stated that the show as it was is over and for the show to move forward with a new cast in an "E.R." type role on ABC, or take a new title completely.
In response to criticisms that the change would tarnish Scrubs' legacy, Lawrence defended the decision, as it would allow the Scrubs crew to continue work through a recession: "Legacy shmegacy. I'm really proud of the show, I'll continue to be proud of the show, but I love all of those people..."
On June 19, 2009, it was announced that the ninth season of "Scrubs" would "shift from the hospital to the classroom and make med-school professors of John C. McGinley's Dr. Cox and Donald Faison's Turk."
According to Lawrence, the ninth season will "be a lot like Paper Chase as a comedy," with Cox's and Turk's students occasionally rotating through the halls of Sacred Heart and encountering former series regulars.
McGinley and Faison were joined by "a quartet of newbies (most of them playing students)" as full-time regulars, while one of the freshmen "will be fairly famous."
Of the seven actors who had appeared in the show since the pilot, only Faison and McGinley retained their roles as regulars.
Zach Braff returned part-time and was absent for the majority of the season, while retaining lead billing for six episodes. Sarah Chalke returned for four episodes as a guest star.
Ken Jenkins (credited as a guest star) appeared in nine of the 13 episodes; Neil Flynn appeared in the season premiere in a brief cameo; Judy Reyes was the only former star to not to return to the show.
In an interview on the YouTube series "Made Man", John C. McGinley stated that the reason for some cast members not returning was that they demanded higher salaries. Although, he did not confirm which cast members, he did specify that two of the original cast made demands; hence, they were not brought back.
The new main cast included Eliza Coupe returning to the recurring role of Denise Mahoney from season eight, Dave Franco as Cole, a charming, confidently stupid, and incredibly entitled medical student whose family donated the money to build the school Kerry Bishé as Lucy, who shared the starring role with Braff in the beginning of the season and eventually became the show's new narrator and Michael Mosley as Drew, a 30-year-old med student on his last attempt at school.
The production for the show's final season took place at Culver Studios.
Cancellation[]
On May 14, 2010, it was officially announced that "Scrubs" was canceled; the season nine finale, titled "Our Thanks", aired on March 17, 2010.
Five days later, on March 22, 2010, Zach Braff announced, via the official Facebook page, that the ninth season of the show would be the last, commenting that: "Many of you have asked, so here it is: it appears that 'New Scrubs', 'Scrubs 2.0', 'Scrubs with New Kids', 'Scrubbier', 'Scrubs without JD' is no more. It was worth a try, but alas... it didn't work.
Reception[]
First eight seasons[]
Throughout its original run, "Scrubs" received critical acclaim, with many critics praising its cast, characters, and humor (especially J.D.'s fantasy sequences).
In 2006, Entertainment Weekly's website EW.com gave the overall series (the review was made early after the fifth-season premiere) a grade of "A-", with the author saying: "Scrubs is the trickiest comedy on TV [...] A likable, daffy, buoyant series that would be a big annoying mess if it weren't done just right, Scrubs is the very definition of nimble."
IGN gave the show's first season a perfect score of 10. The seven following seasons were rated, respectively, 9, 9, 9, 8, 7.5, 8.3 and 7.5.
Common Sense Media, which mainly rates series in terms of violence, sex, and profanity, gave Scrubs a positive review and awarded it 4 out of 5 stars despite having rated both "Sex", "Language" and "Drinking, drugs, & smoking" 3 out of 5, stating "this show can be screamingly funny but is very adult-oriented".
The Truth About Nursing (which checks the realism of the medical series) gave "Scrubs" a "Nursing rating" of 1.5 out of 4 stars, but an "Artistic rating" of 3 out of 4 stars, praising that "despite the nasty and surreal elements, its characters are not above learning or growing, as they try to cope with the very real stresses of life and death at the hospital".
However, the reviewer stated, "The show's portrayal of nursing has been less impressive".
Review aggregate Metacritic only assigned an average score to the eighth and ninth seasons, with the eighth season scoring 79/100, based on four reviews only (all positives), indicating "Generally favorable reviews."
The ninth season's new characters were heavily criticized. However, the performances of original cast members (including Donald Faison) were praised.
Ninth season[]
The ninth and final season of "Scrubs" received mixed reviews, with many critics heavily criticizing the new cast; it received a score of 64/100 on Metacritic, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".
An IGN editor gave it a positive score of 7 out of 10, stating "even though this was not the best season, I'll always have fond memories of the show".
USA Today reviewer Robert Bianco wrote a negative review, stating: "The result is a deadly, deal-driven mistake that takes a network that has made great sitcom strides forward one unfortunate step back".
He also noted that the presence of a few members of the original cast (Braff, Faison, and John C. McGinley) "only makes it harder for the new characters to take hold" (despite his additional criticism of Braff's performance).
Blogcritics gave it a mixed review, criticizing the new cast, but praising the performances by the original cast members.