Scrubs Thread

[benji]

This is the best season in forever. Cox-Kelso is brilliant.

[Andrew]

I wasn't as big a fan of the last two episodes myself. Love the whole situation with Kelso and Dr Cox but the Cox/JD and Janitor/JD stuff is getting stale. Great stuff with Ted though.

[Joe']

God, Kelso-Cox is indeed brilliant! Best episodes so far this season in my opinion, even though Turk was not involved for some reason...

[Andrew]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was a cost cutting measure, I've read that the writing staff has been split into two for similar reasons but that could be offbase.

[el badman]

I really liked those last two episodes, I thought the writing was brilliant. I do agree that the JD/janitor stuff is not always spot on though.

[benji]

I thought the "truce" was actually very very good. It's a development of their relationship that hasn't been seen and given focus before. It's been seven years (WHICH IS SO FUCKING LONG IN TV TIME) they should be at that point by now. JD knows the Janitor better than everyone else, and vice versa, playing them off as hating yet fully understanding how to work with each other is so obvious that it's been ignored. The Janitor knows JD in order to own him, and JD in order to avoid the Janitor (plus the Janitor's quirks which JD has discovered in various ways) so their maximizing their capabilities to improve Ted was brilliant.

I think this season has been really good because they're really ditching Carla and Turk, who objectively suck on their own. They've been maximizing JD, Elliott and Cox through Kelso and the interns. The JD-Elliott relationship thing is essential like The Office, because when you get them together, you have to do away with the drama between them 90% of the time, and thus focus on the other characters. It's why The Office got better when they got over Jam, and why Scrubs is better when they're playing JD-Elliott as "real" instead of "MTV Real."

[Andrew]

I enjoyed the "truce" too, I just don't find the Janitor's hatred (or whatever you care to call it) of JD as funny or entertaining as it once was. The truce was certainly fresh but then the status quo was restored, which I guess is necessary but isn't really character or relationship development. That's what I like about the current JD-Elliot relationship, it's being handled differently than before as you noted so the "breakthrough" they had has stuck beyond the closing credits of an episode. That said, I'm really enjoing the season on the whole to the extent that I'm kind of sorry it will be the last season, which is how I'd like to feel when it ends rather than feeling that it had a good run but it's time it finished, or that it should have finished a couple of seasons ago. It's how I'd like to feel about The Simpsons when it finally concludes but there's probably not much chance of that happening.

[JaoSming]

I liked these two too. Kinda weird that they got through an entire episode without JD physically being there.


They kind of dropped the whole Cox has issues with balancing his job stuff and have made it seem that he has everything under control since he was helping people and whatnot.


Anyway, bummed that we dont get new episodes till end of March now, stupid need for them to rerun these episodes.

[Eich]

i loved them..
Mostly i liked when Jimmy made a parody of Dane Cook..god, he was right, Dane Cook is not funny...

[Andrew]

I liked them, I think having JD still feature in the episode through phone calls certainly helped "My Absence" but it was an interesting episode nevertheless without his narration throughout. I was kind of disappointed they continued the one dimensional Cox characterisation though where he's completely hostile to JD. I thought it was a good opportunity to have Cox be really happy JD wasn't around (which he was) but through the course of the day discover he actually needed him around more than he'd ever be willing to admit (and be truly disgusted with himself in the process, which John C. McGinley could've made hilarious) but they didn't go down that road. It seems like they're trying to squeeze too much humour out of Cox being a complete and utter jerk whereas he's traditionally been a jerk, yes, but when it comes down to it not such a bad person and has a method to his madness.

JD for his part has regressed a bit too, all previous breakthroughs and character development once again pushed aside for the status quo. As I said before, the JD/Cox stuff hasn't been great this season in my opinion, they could be doing some entertaining stuff with it but instead they just amped up Cox's "jerkiness". I'm probably the only one, but it's starting to grate a little.

[el badman]

I thought those two were not quite as funny as the previous ones, at least the first one. I don't know, the whole pacing and tone seem off when JD is not physically there. Turk had some pretty weak lines here and there and the janitor stuff seemed kind awkward at times. They were alright overall, but after the last 3-4 episodes, I thought it was a small drop in quality.

[Andrew]

It definitely feels different without the narration throughout the episode.

[el badman]

Wasn't the new episode kind of weak?
The janitor stuff was boring, the "experimental procedure inspired by Sports Center" felt completely off, and even the Cox couple wasn't that funny. And what's up with Elliott only showing up at the end of the episode?
And Ted, where is Ted goddamn it!?

[JaoSming]

at least there were no interns

[Andrew]

I liked it, though I also think the ultra-jerk stuff with Cox and Jordan is wearing a little thin. Out of context and amplified, it's not that funny. But as far as serious/subdued episodes go I thought it was pretty good, on the humour side the Sportscenter stuff was good for a chuckle, there was some disturbingly funny stuff with Dr Zeltzer and I loved JD's "As I took Elliot's hand and nodded to make her think I was listening" line, one of my favourite "summing up" narrations of late.

[Andrew]

Latest episode was alright, pretty good use of the interns though it was probably for the best they didn't focus as heavily on them as previous His/Her/Their Story episodes. Dr Cox and Janitor stuff was alright, nothing special, I'm probably in the minority here but for me they're definitely a bit stale right now. It's a shame it was Ken Jenkins' turn to miss an episode, a Kelso line probably would've stolen the show.

[Andrew]

Good, solid episode yesterday and the first that was completely without JD (since "My Absence" still had him "appear" by phone). I thought it came off pretty well, having Elliot and Turk "team up" at the forefront of an episode is something they haven't really done all that much but with the rest of the main cast sitting this one out they played off each other pretty well as the clear cut stars of the episode. The stuff with the interns wasn't too bad either.

[el badman]

It was pretty good, but given the absence of JD and Carla, I thought it was pretty obvious that at some point in the episode, they would bring up the "what if..." kind of moment between Turk and Elliott, that was just predictable. Still, a solid episode considering the cast members that did not appear in that one. The interns can be surprisingly good I thought.

[JaoSming]

Yea the "what if...." was predictable and pissed me off since I was worried they might go down that road in the future.

but it wasn't a horrible episode, I just kinda wish that they would have had a side story with JD or Carla

[Andrew]

It was but they've only touched on that a couple of times before and they've done JD/Carla stories a fair few times culminating in the accidental kiss in season four. I guess I just enjoy the more unusual pairings.

An example from another series would be the episode of Friends "The One With All The Cheesecakes" where Chandler and Rachel were put in a story together where they were stealing the titular cheesecakes from an apartment downstairs. It's putting two characters together in a story that you don't usually see team up; they're certainly not enemies but they're usually paired off in stories of some sort with other characters. That's kind of how it is with Turk and Elliot, not that they've never done something like that before but I found it refreshing all the same.

Then again it could just be the break from Dr Cox. Don't get me wrong, over the course of the series I think he's been a fantastic (and hilarious) character but since taking on his new role I haven't really liked the way he's been used. Probably just me, though.

[Eich]

fuck episode 12 was the best i have ever seen.. the start was so funny.. i was at a hospital , killing time by watching something on my mp4, and when i was watching scrubs i was lmao. Ow god.. but the Cox idea was pretty good.

[Andrew]

Any episode that features Sarah Chalke in a bikini is fine by me. Those scenes aside it was a pretty good episode in my view, better use of Dr Cox than some other recent episodes and some fun JD/Turk stuff. Hopefully JD will redeem himself and smooth things over with Elliot in part two, the fact that they've kept them together for more than a couple of episodes has been quite refreshing and having them break up over one fight - again - would be tremendously disappointing. If you're going to have your characters grow, mature and develop...stick with it!

[JaoSming]

um, I disagree with the Sarak Chalke in a bikini

she's gotten quite anorexic imo and just isn't sexy at all when all I can see are those ribs...

[Andrew]

She is quite thin but I wouldn't say anorexic-looking. Keira Knightley is someone who tends to look more anorexic though apparently she's never actually suffered from any kind of eating disorder.

[JaoSming]

She was by far the hottest, cutest, girl on TV for me since the beginning of scrubs, but after seeing those amazingly thin arms, and the obvious bones in here body, just kinda a turn off