Scrubs Season 9, also known as Scrubs: Med School, saw the sitcom crash and burn after eight stellar seasons. While there were several reasons for the sitcom’s cancellation in 2010, there was one that stood out above the rest. Worryingly, the upcoming revival doesn’t appear to have learned its lesson. I can only hope that this time around, the writers are adopting a radically different approach, despite confirmation that they’re working with largely the same tools.
Much to the relief of Scrubs fans everywhere, it’s been announced that the 13 Med School episodes have been erased from the show’s main timeline. Now, they essentially happened in an alternate reality and have no canonical connection to Scrubs Seasons 1-8 or its upcoming return. Although most of the original cast did come back for what was supposed to be the Scrubs spin-off, Season 9 shifted most of its focus to a fresh batch of younger characters. It was an interesting attempt to build a franchise, brought about by the imminent departure of Zach Braff’s JD, but it ultimately failed. Sixteen years later, history appears to be repeating itself.
The ‘Scrubs’ Revival Already Has Way Too Many New Characters
‘Med School’ Already Tried This, and It Failed
The incoming new cast members of the Scrubs revival have been gradually soft-launched on the show’s social media accounts. To date, there have already been five sneak peeks of what to expect from a total of five new doctors. It’s too early to tell how these characters will land, as the clips are very brief and don’t give much away about their personalities and just how prominent they’ll be within the show’s new era. That said, it would make sense if they received quite a lot of screen time. Furthermore, these five doctors aren’t the only newcomers, as there are additional Sacred Heart employees making their respective debuts as non-medical personnel.
The absence of Neil Flynn’s Janitor has raised a few eyebrows, as he was a fan-favorite during the show’s golden age, and the same is also true of Ken Jenkins’ Dr. Kelso. The 2020 passing of Sam Lloyd means Ted also can’t return. Other than this absent trio, the Scrubs revival is bringing back every main cast member from the sitcom’s original run. These characters are who fans will be most interested in being reunited with, and yet the characters in question are being forced to share the screen with a great many newcomers who will probably take a while to take root.
The Scrubs revival’s first run is also only set to be nine episodes long, and there’s been no confirmation that a second season will happen. Members of the cast have expressed a desire for a Season 2, but it hasn’t been officially announced. While catching up with JD and the other established characters was probably doable in nine episodes, also cramming in a whole host of fresh characters makes it seem unlikely that the original cast will receive sufficient screen time.
I’m very concerned that it’ll all feel very rushed. It makes sense that new doctors would also be at Sacred Heart after 16 years, and there was even a constant injection of new blood in Seasons 1-8. However, those older runs routinely consisted of 20+ episodes, and the younger doctors were rarely more than side characters. The revival isn’t guaranteed the same amount of time as the show’s heyday. Making the decision to include so many new figures, many of whom appear to be central to the plot, seems very misguided.
How the New ‘Scrubs’ Episodes Can Avoid Season 9’s Failures
The incoming members of the Scrubs cast do seem to be playing fun and interesting characters, but that was also the case for those brought aboard in Med School. The interns in Season 9 weren’t objectively bad; they were actually well-written and brought to life by talented actors. The biggest issue was that fans just wanted more from JD and company, and they were being forced to sit through scenes they didn’t care about in order to get to the moments they wanted to see. Annoyingly, those moments also became shorter and more sparse as Med School progressed. It was a conscious effort to phase out the old and establish the new.
Inversely, a huge motivator behind the Scrubs revival appears to be to fix Med School‘s mistakes and cash in on the nostalgia of all the previous episodes. This is no more solidly proven by the reversal of Season 9 ever happening, which includes undoing the demolition of the old Sacred Heart Hospital. Rather than bringing the original cast back, just to gradually push them out again, the revival’s premise is built around the concept of a long-awaited reunion between JD and his former colleagues. If something that emotionally loaded is relegated to a B-storyline, then what would be the point of making more episodes at all?
Therefore, although the new characters are bound to have important roles to play when the sitcom returns, I’d be very surprised if they overshadowed the original cast like in Med School. Instead, the newcomers will likely be used to augment the revival’s various arcs, rather than taking center stage for too long. At the very least, that’s what I hope will be the case, or the Scrubs revival could be over before it has a chance to properly begin.
-
Scrubs
- Release Date
-
2001 – 2010-00-00
- Network
-
ABC, NBC
- Directors
-
Michael Spiller, Chris Koch, Ken Whittingham, Adam Bernstein, Gail Mancuso, Marc Buckland, John Inwood, John Putch, Will Mackenzie, Victor Nelli Jr., Craig Zisk, Lawrence Trilling, Linda Mendoza, Michael McDonald, John Michel, Rick Blue, Richard Alexander Wells, Henry Chan, Joanna Kerns, Mark Stegemann, Matthew Diamond, Peter Lauer, Elodie Keene, Jason Ensler
-
Scrubs
- Release Date
-
February 25, 2026
- Network
-
ABC
Cast
-
Donald Faison
Christopher Turk
-
-
Source link
Add Comment