The eighth season of Scrubs ended on a sweet high note that really tied the series off with a nice bow. It ended the series nicely. Cleanly. Over. Finished. Finito. Those who followed the series from the first season to the last can attest that the series had begun to sag in its writing and the jokes of the last few seasons felt like repeats of gags from earlier on. It wasn’t just the comedy though, the story of Turk (Donald Faison) and Carla (Judy Reyes) had long played itself out, and JD’s bouncing from one woman to the next lost its purpose about five seasons in. By the end of season eight the characters were ready for retirement; the ninth season was born not out of a desire to keep telling their stories, but as creator Bill Lawrence said himself in an interview, to keep the crew of Scrubs employed for as long as possible in a miserable economy.
With no explanation or previous mention in the eighth season, the ninth suddenly transplants the doctors you’ve come to love to a medical school campus. Characters that don’t return get written off with a short explanation, some just vanish, and those that do return do so for brief and scattered intervals after the pilot. Everyone shows up for the pilot, to help the audience transition into this new territory, but they’re just there so you can get used to the new faces. Unfortunately, the newcomers are either too close to carbon copies of the original characters or just running jokes that come across as obnoxious by the end of their first appearance.
Playing the Zach Braff proxy for what ABC hoped would be a new Scrubs legacy is Kerry Bishé as the insecure, slightly ditzy Lucy, who finds herself suffering obstacles similar to JD’s, including the unflinchingly harsh opinions of Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley), who may be the most commonly recurring original character in the ninth season. Michael Mosley stars as JD’s chief competitor for Cox’s attention, as the only student with enough backbone to earn the eternal cynic’s pseudo-respect, Drew. The romantic interest for Drew, Denise (Eliza Coupe), essentially comes across as a microcosm of Cox with the same devil-may-care attitude towards any emotional connection, with the rare crack in her armor that lets her see eye to eye with another character (usually in bed). Then there’s the Todd-esque character, but in a much more weasel-like capacity. In fact, his character is the same as Elliot’s first intern from way back in the earliest seasons, but they’ve copied and pasted him here and made him the ladies man eternally hitting on every girl he sees (like the Todd). The parallels between the new cast and the old are a bit too glaring to ignore, and none of them get the character development that the original characters did as the process is hindered by simultaneously trying to balance their spotlight time with that of the veteran Scrubs cast.
Coupe and Mosley are easily the best two of the new lot as they seem to have the show’s sense of comedic timing down right off the bat. Granted, Coupe had a little extra practice as part of the ensemble cast in the previous season, but Mosley holds his own whenever onscreen with McGinley, Braff, and Faison. Coupe’s dry sense of humor is the perfect counterpoint to the flowery disposition of Bishé, and makes it almost feel like Cox is always on the screen (which is a good thing, as he may be the best thing to come from the series).
The season is lackluster in its writing, and the season never really picks up any traction in its relationships which feel like empty interactions to make the characters seem real. But it takes more than empty flings in break rooms to revive Scrubs, and there’s nothing else here.
DVD Bonus Features
As if the audience couldn’t already tell, the cast and crew (including Lawrence, Braff, and Sarah Chalke) offer a featurette on how the series changed over the years. Beyond that, there’s just a selection of deleted scenes and a blooper reel. The final extra is titled “Live from the Golf Cart” and is a funny little series courtesy of one of the show’s recurring mechanical characters.
"Scrubs: The Ninth and Final Season" is on sale September 28, 2010 and is not rated. Comedy. Directed by John Putch, Michael McDonald, Michael Spiller. Written by Bill Lawrence, Steven Cragg & Brian Bradley, Corey Nickerson, Prentice Penny. Starring Donald Faison, John C McGinley, Sarah Chalke, Zach Braff, Eliza Coupe, Kerry Bishé, Michael Mosley, Dave Franco.
