When I was presented with the notion of a Scrubs reunion, my heart leapt. The thought of seeing Turk and JD’s “guy-love”, Dr Cox’s dry cynicism and Ted’s acapella group, The Blanks back on our screens for the first time in eight years got me dusting off my box set DVDs (because for some unearthly reason Friends has made it onto Netflix but not Scrubs) and ready to watch them all from start to finish.
But then I remembered how Scrubs ended. The ninth and final season should never have existed in the first place. After the incredibly moving final scene of the eighth season, which sees JD looking into his future, married to Elliot, looking after Turk and Carla’s children and hanging out with Dr Cox, all to the soundtrack of Peter Gabriel’s ‘The Book of Love’. Why did they even attempt to continue a story which, as far as many of us were concerned, was beautifully and appropriately wrapped up? JD, and actually, most of the original cast, is barely in the season at all, and rather than being set of the intensive care ward, like every other season, it was set in the classroom, seeing Turk and Dr Cox in the roles of teachers rather than doctors. Such a drastic change in the style of the show was a rogue move for what they were fairly sure was going to be the final season, and it saw them lose a lot of fans along the way.
I don’t trust the writers to do it well, because they didn’t last time
It is for this reason that I was relieved to find out that the reunion was in social terms only and not in any capacity preceding a re-vamp of the show, simply because I don’t trust the writers to do it well, because they didn’t last time. Instead of respecting the end of their character’s stories, they added new, inexperienced actors to play roles which were essentially replicas of earlier models, only performed with less class and innovation. The futility of season nine has rendered any future Scrubs ventures, be it a movie, a tenth season, or even a reunion sketch, completely redundant. Although it’s their life’s work and something very much to be proud of, creator Bill Lawrence needs to sit back and let JD, Elliot, Turk and Carla sit back and enjoy the lives he set out for them in the season eight finale.
