TL;DR – It found its charm at times, but whether it was the short episode order or the passage of time, I just came away feeling a bit hollow about it all.

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that aired this episode.

Scrubs Review –

I came into the first episode of this new spin-off, My Return, with a touch of trepidation. Could a show like Scrubs find that same formula among the cast that worked for almost all its runtime? Can a show both reinvent itself for a modern audience without losing that pull of nostalgia and vibe that made it good in the first place? These are the questions I asked myself this season.  

So, to set the scene, it has been a long time since JD (Zach Braff) worked at Sacred Heart hospital [which was not torn down, I do not know how that rumour got started]. However, while he spends his days being a concierge doctor for the wealthy, it is not exactly a stimulating profession. But as fate would have it, today he is back at his old stomping grounds, because one of his patients got admitted. It is a place of joy with old friends, Turk (Donald Faison) and Carla (Judy Reyes), old mentors, Dr Cox (John C. McGinley), and more recent ex-wives, Elliot (Sarah Chalke). But when JD gets an offer he can’t refuse, his life is about to do a complete U-turn. Now, from here, we will be looking at the season, so there will be [SPOILERS] ahead.

It is Good to See Friends.

Watching this show, there is a feeling of catching up with old friends that you have not seen in an age and reminiscing about the past. When shows end, you often wonder what the characters got up to after the credits end. Well, you do if the show meant something to you. The problem with revisiting a show like this, and others such as Star Trek Picard or Fallout, is that you can never please everyone because we all have different ideas of what their future could be. It is the Lost problem, but with a medical comedy.    

The opening monologue was a warm embrace that you didn’t know you were missing, but it also came with a bitter pill that Elliot and JD had divorced over the years since the show ended. I know that caused a lot of castigation from the wider fan base, but it was also a source of concern for me. When I reviewed My Return, my big fear for the season is that we would rehash the same material the original show did season after season. That is Elliot and JD falling in and out of love. Well, I am glad to say that did not fall into this trap, as the aim of their storylines was just to get to a new normal. It is such a boon to the show that all the returning players are clearly having fun being back in those roles. I have to admit, I am glad to see everyone, even the issues I am about to segue to.  

Where is Everyone?

I do have to give full respect to the set builders in Canada because they made a whole bunch of sets that looked as if they were exactly the hospital from the original show, if it had 20-odd years of improvements around the edges. This attention to detail was a real boon for the series, but also highlighted one of its main issues: where is everyone? Now, I am not talking here about John C. McGinley & Judy Reyes only being in a handful of episodes. More like that the fabric of the show felt hollow in places.

The show Scrubs was just as much about its supporting cast and the background cast that made the show feel like a home. Here, we get a much more surgical experience. While a lot of the supporting cast have potential, Vanessa Bayer & Joel Kim Booster are a joy to watch on the screen. Also, each of the new interns show promise. And I do want to see more of them, but we barely had time to get to know these characters before the season was done and dusted. While moving the production to Vancouver means that all those background characters that you know and love are absent, with the notable exception of The Todd (Robert Maschio). For example, there is a whole sequence in the morgue that felt like a real missed opportunity. The opposite problem of Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair.

The Beginning of the Beginning.

All of this comes down to the short episode order that is the bane of modern television out of America because at least the British know how to pull off a 10-episode season … no, don’t talk to me about the last season of Doctor Who. This lack of substance is elevated by the show only being a half-hour comedy, limiting that depth even more. We get all of those foundational steps that you need; each of the main returning cast members gets an episode just for them, and we get some introduction to the worlds of the new batch of interns. But just when you feel that the show is building to something, it is over.  

We see that the most in My Odds & My Celebration, the final two episodes of the season. My Odds is a riff on the foundational My Old Lady from the first season of the show. Where Scrubs stamped its label on the comedy that will kick you in the feels by setting up the premise that one in three patients will die, only to kill them all off, this would not be the first time Scrubs would make me weep in its original runtime. The spin here is that all the patients survive, but it is Dr Cox collapsing that is the real curveball.

There is some real pathos in this episode, with JD desperately trying to be Cox’s doctor, and Cox not wanting his death to be the one thing that destroys JD’s optimism. “Just remember I tried to save you from this” is probably the most poignant line from the whole series. However, in the original run, whenever the show ended on a major point like this, the following episode tended to be the highlight for the season. For example: My Occurrence leads to My Hero, which leads to crying ugly tears in My Screw Up. Or My Lunch leading into My Fallen Idol. It felt as if the show was building to something, an episode ten that just didn’t come. Yet.  

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Scrubs: Season Ten? While I do feel that it never quite got to the heights of the previous seasons, it was an enjoyable, if short ride. I do hope they use this as a launch pad and remove some of that hollow feeling I got with it all. But as it stands, this was fine. It still has the highs that you remember, but it does not have the sticking power yet for me to recommend going out of your way to buy a streaming subscription to watch it on. Have you seen Scrubs yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below.          

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Scrubs
Directed by – Gail Mancuso, Ken Whittingham, Chris Koch, Michael Spiller, Zach Braff, & Randall Keenan Winston
Written by – Mark Stegemann, Aaron Lee, Michael Hobert, Mathew Harawitz, Aseem Batra, Tim Hobert Sharp, Kate Seth Cohen, Sophie Zucker, Christopher Eddins, & Brianna Porter
Created by – Bill Lawrence
Developed by – Aseem Batra & Tim Hobert
Based On – Scrubs by Bill Lawrence
Production/Distribution Companies – Doozer, Seemu! Inc., 20^th Television, Hulu & Disney+
Starring – Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, John C. McGinley, Judy Reyes, Joel Kim Booster, Ava Burn, Jacob Dudman, David Gridley, Layla Mohammadi, Amanda Morrow, & Vanessa Bayer
With – Christa Miller, Neil Flynn, Rachel Bilson, Robert Maschio, Michael James Scott, Michael Benyaer, Dalia Rooni, X Mayo, Eddie Leavy, Derek Gilroy, Andy Ridings, Brittany Ishibashi, Lisa Gilroy, Geoff Pierson, Charlotte Ross, Kirsten Vangsness, Phill Lewis, Matt Rife, John Kapelos, Megan Fay, Alan Blumenfeld, Anna Maria Horsford, & Sierra Sidwell
And – Darcy Michael, Andy Thmpson, Juliet Kaggwa, Roraigh Falkner, Suzanne Ristic, Alex Baklan, Alex Arcedo, Cynthis de Pando, Sarah Peguero, Bille Baird, Ethel Pitchford, Laura Mac, Ronald Dario, Craig Meester, Brett Willis, Henry J. Sharp, Kate Robbins, Monroe McWilliams, Robert Moloney, Ava Frica, Tyler McClendon, Ava Poyer, & Blaine Perrin.
Episodes Covered – My Return, My 2nd First Day, My Rom-Com, My Poker Face, My Angel, My V.I.P., My Best Friend’s Barbecue, My Odds, & My Celebration.