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Last year, Scrubs completed its eighth season with a touching, emotional series finale. Characters wrapped up loose ends, began new lives and even took part in a montage showing them all growing old together. It was simultaneously tear-jerking and gut-busting, everything a finale should be.
Then series creator Bill Lawrence shocked everyone with some news: Scrubs would be returning for a ninth season. And Scrubs fans scratched their heads, stared at the computer and let out a confused and sorrowful “Why?”
Well, to be fair, Lawrence didn’t say it like that. He announced that something resembling Scrubs would return to the air in the coming year, but that it would not try to be the same show.
As more details emerged, we learned that the new show would center around a medical school at which Turk and Dr. Cox were both teaching, as well as at a newer version of Sacred Heart Hospital (now located on campus). A newer, younger cast would carry most of the load, though old characters would pop up from time to time.
And if Lawrence could have his way, I’m sure the new Scrubs would be its own show, with a name like “Scrubs Med School” and a different feel entirely. But when your show’s ratings have dipped year after year and you’re constantly losing money making it, you can’t always get what you want.
Network heads forced Scrubs to sign Zach Braff, whose protagonist J.D. got most of last season’s wonderful send-off, for six more episodes at the beginning of the new season to help viewers transition. The problem is, this goes against Lawrence’s concept of effectively making the ninth season a spinoff.
What’s worse, it stomps on a lot of the bittersweet joy viewers felt when watching the then-finale last year. For longtime fans, it was important to say goodbye to J.D. Now that we know it wasn’t a real goodbye, will viewers feel that their emotions were needlessly manipulated, or worse, that the show deceived them?
All of this nonsense could have been avoided if ABC had let Lawrence trust his instincts and create a new show with a new name and a few well-known characters carrying over.
But in a classic case of audience-underestimation, they thought old viewers would be confused and not carry over. So they used the same name and heavily featured a character who is going to disappear forever in six episodes, thereby skewing the focus.
Lawrence wanted Scrubs to end last year. He only agreed to bring it back if it were a different show entirely. It now seems that ABC locked him in, and then refused to let him make it the way he wanted. And when networks interfere creatively, it’s almost never a good thing.
Only time will tell with the new Scrubs — the old show had fantastic writers and actors, and there’s a good chance that talent will shine through the network bull. But it’s hard to ignore those ominous clouds hanging over its head.
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