By Ryan Broderick
“Scrubs” was the brainchild of Bill Lawrence after he left the ashes of other sitcoms like “Clone High” and “Spin City” to create a more dynamic and tightly constructed “dramedy.” “Scrubs” started slowly, but because of strong leads like Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and a strong supporting cast, it quickly garnered critical acclaim.
It was celebrated for its use of twisting situational comedy, dark humor and emotional drama together to create a format rarely touched by similar ensemble comedies.
Last season fans noticed a sliding decline in quality, as story arches and beloved characters were warped and thrown away in the wake of the writer’s strike. This season, after “Scrubs” was moved to ABC to continue its last season, it’s only gotten worse.
What happened to “Scrubs?” The writing team of “Scrubs” this season has continued their crusade to drive the most fully dimensional sitcom on television into the ground. This season they’ve come up with a whole new myriad of ways to kick off everyone’s favorite characters.
J.D. is being phased out so quickly that in one of the latest episodes he appeared on speaker phone. Speaker phone!? Sarah Chalke has always been a weak link to the cast. Now though, she just parades around the set rifling off her 3 types of pouty faces and whisper voices, passing the time until she can join a new show. And Turk and Carla have become completely irrelevant, popping into frame every once in a while just to help out some new awful intern.
Speaking of which! The new round of interns are boring, completely irrelevant, and are no way even close to as interesting as anyone else in the cast.
Also, Ted has a weird looking girlfriend. She plays ukulele. It’s f***ing retarded.
So, I’m out. I’m done. “Scrubs” is being ravaged by its creators in front of us and if “Scrubs” were a person and we didn’t try to stop it, we’d go to jail too.
Looking back on “Scrubs,” it’s hard to believe that it’s the same show. What started as a strong, character driven sitcom is now reduced to a cookie cutter formula of inside jokes and throwaway gags that never hit. It has the comedic integrity of “Big Momma’s House 2” expanded into 16 half hour episodes.
The last core season of “Scrubs” is a high school yearbook. Every joke is just some nostalgic piece of garbage about how funny things used to be. Instead of letting a fantastic show close with a dignified bow, they’re plundering it for every last cheap minute.
I intend to watch it and follow it its miserable, dragging, merciless end. When it ends, I’ll shrug, delete this new season off my DVR, and tune into the old episodes on Comedy Central.