Great Minds Think Different

This is just a quick post before tonight’s finale. And I swear I’m working on a “Chuck” post; it’s just really long. And sometime in the next week there’s going to be an immensely long post covering all the Scrubs that has ever been.

While this episode’s Janitor subplot didn’t involve the Janitor actually doing anything, it did give us one of the more fantastic Janitor moments of all time: when he answers “Yes?” to Jordan in that insane tone of voice with a Sun Chip in his eye. Of course there was also his rant to the kid at the beginning. “Would you be willing to change the location of your eyes…to here?” I just don’t understand how one person is capable of making this kind of stuff up on the spot. At least Neil Flynn has a bright future in improv comedy after Scrubs is over.

There was another fart joke: “Dr. Mantoots”. I don’t know why the writers’ brains have regressed to seventh-grade level, but I am certainly not one to complain. There were more JD/Turk gay jokes. Although that storyline took a turn for the serious at the end, they kept it immature by having JD’s pants around his ankles the entire time.

Gooch and her extremely oddly-proportioned head were back. So was Denise, who was great as usual. “I just wanted to do something I know I could do right, like bangin’ a dude.” No random guest stars from the past this episode, but the finale should be loaded with them, from what I hear.

This episode’s primary dramatic concerns reflect the theme of season 8 as a whole. The characters’ lives as they know them are coming to an end. Certainly the future holds tons of possibilities for all of them, but they are a story for another time, another place. “Scrubs” has followed these people from the beginning of the beginning of their careers to the end of the beginning. The rest will be interesting, but “Scrubs” has told its part, and we’re watching the characters make the transition into the next part. There could have been more of this theme in the rest of the season, but I guess they didn’t want to beat it into the ground. You can bet the finale will beat it into the ground, though. But that’s OK. It’s the series finale; that’s what it’s supposed to do.

42 total minutes of Scrubs remain. I hope they’re good ones. So far this last season has done the rest of the show justice, but it all comes down to tonight.

ABC in talks to renew Scrubs

Guys, seriously. I love Scrubs, but its time has come. Just let it go out with a good last season, and then leave it alone.

I really like Scott Foley, I have to admit. I haven’t been pleased with any of Elliot’s boyfriends since Sean. He’s just such a perfect mix of random quirks and oddities, especially as Elliot’s significant other. He and JD have always had good comic rapport as two mildly insane competitors for Elliot’s affections.

I suppose it makes sense that a show in its last season would bring back some favorite guest stars from the past, and Scott Foley is pretty much the best possible choice, other than, of course, Tom Cavanagh as Dan Dorian. I think I remember reading some rumors of a Tom Cavanagh appearance on the interwebs, but of course you shouldn’t believe things you read on the interwebs. I do have to take this moment to say: both of these guest stars, as excellent as they are, do not hold a candle to the best Scrubs guest star of all time: Brendan Fraser. Unfortunately, his character’s dead so a return isn’t really an option other than in flashbacks (or possibly “Sixth Sense”-style dead-man-walking à la “My Screw Up”). Foley and Cavanagh are more than good enough for me.

You know what? I really miss season 3 right now. In fact:

Just a small town girl
Living in a lonely world
She took a midnight train goin’ anywhere

Just a city boy
Born and raised in south Detroit
He took a midnight train goin’ anywhere

…

STREET LIGHT
PEOPLE
WO OH OHHHHHHHHH

I suppose I should explain myself. Here’s my explanation: Journey is the shit.

Seriously now, I thought this episode was great. Full of comic moments, one excellent guest star and one pretty good one (Elizabeth Banks, who for whatever reason has been appearing in a lot of dumb comedy movies these past few years), and an interesting plot twist at the end. Sean and JD still had their rapport, with their disputes over saying “good” and yogurt. Their conversations could have come straight out of season 3. The ongoing “wiener cuz” joke was pretty good too.

Despite the fact that it was entirely later-seasons-style, I laughed uproariously at Elliot and Kim’s conversation on the ramp. “Who’s In There?” “What’s In There?” “Mister Peep Tries On Hats”?? Where in the hell did they come up with things like that? “Mister Peep Tries On Hats”?? Seriously??

No JD/Turk gay jokes this week, unfortunately, but just a bit of JD thinking Sean is beautiful. I kind of wish they’d brought up the “full-lipped” joke from season 3 episode 20. And yes, I did know that without looking it up, although I did go back to confirm.

Leaving aside the implausibility of Turk being named chief of surgery at the hospital (he’s only been an attending for three years, for Christ’s sake; where did all the other surgeons older than him go?), I liked that subplot because it continued Cox’s evolution into a kinder, gentler person. It also gave Carla a bit of a role to play (remember how I said she doesn’t get much to do anymore? Yeah, this is about the extent of it).

Kelso also had some great moments treating himself and browbeating interns. (Although, where’s Denise? I think she and Kelso could make some great comedy.) And it was nice to have Kelso in the hospital (and very strange to see him as a patient) instead of just being Norm from “Cheers” in the coffee shop. For some reason, his walk through the ICU with the back of his gown open has taken on a “legendary Scrubs moment” status in my mind even though it really wasn’t. It was hilarious of course (including Mickhead taking a picture on his cellphone in the background — subtle background antics are a sign of Scrubs in its better days), but not legendary.

I think there’s like an hour total of Scrubs left. I’m honestly going to be sad when it’s over.

Good episode.

Thankfully, Bill Lawrence did not ruin everything. In fact, he was pretty darn good. The setting really helped — it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if he’d been in a Sacred Heart episode. The fact that they’re in the Bahamas for a mostly-ridiculous wedding fits a lot better with his character.

They have not laid off the Turk/JD gay jokes, which I of course appreciate to no end. “Elliot, I love you more than Turk.” They played that one perfectly.

All in all, this episode reminded me a lot of those episodes in seasons 2 and 3, where everyone’s having some kind of problem and they’re all oddly parallel and tied together by JD’s narration, right down to the acoustic guitar music at the end. (I particularly remember this kind of thing happening in season 3 because there were two episodes that concluded with music by Tammany Hall NYC, who I suddenly started liking a lot recently.)

Carla was a lot better in this episode. (Except: where did her pregnancy go? Obviously you can’t fake being pregnant in a bikini, but it was kind of jarring.) Unfortunately Elliot didn’t do so well, probably in part because she was supposed to be annoying the whole time. She was good in the final scene, though, recognizing the significance of JD loving her more than he loves Turk.

One surprise standout in this episode was Lady. She’s been head and shoulders above most of the random guests on Scrubs, and is an especially good foil for the Janitor (who had more of a dramatic role in this episode than comedic, if that’s even conceivable).

They managed to stretch out the mermaid joke (which has been around since season 3 episode 22) in hilarious fashion, culminating in Turk attempting to speak in mermaid language. Usually this kind of joke-stretching falls flat, but I’m glad this one didn’t since it’s an extension of what was a really good throwaway gag from an early season.

I’m still not convinced that Everybody Goes On Vacation episodes are a good idea, but at least this one was a step in the right direction from last week.

A look at the Internet reveals that the season will conclude with an hour-long two-episode finale: episodes 18 and 19. This means: 80 total minutes of Scrubs remain. I really hope they’re mostly good ones.

Come on, Scrubs. Get it together.

I’m pretty sure “Everybody Goes On Vacation” episodes are considered about a 99% certain shark jump. A show this close to the end of its life can’t really jump the shark, but still, not a good sign. This entire episode felt like it was plucked out of the later half of season 6.

I did enjoy the nod to season 1 episode 14: this episode is, in terms of seasons, the seven-year anniversary of JD and Elliot’s first kiss. And I enjoyed that they cranked the JD/Turk gayness several notches past overdrive. And thankfully, they could afford to pay the entire A-cast, as well as the two major B-cast members, Ted and Todd.

Apart from that, there was very little in this episode that I liked. Even the Janitor had only one marginally hilarious rant. Mike Schwartz was back, pretending he’s an actor when he’s very obviously not. Zach Braff was swanning around with no shirt for way too long. Sarah Chalke sang, and even though the badness of it was supposed to be a joke it was still just awful. Lame jokes were stretched out for far too long, like “I’m talking mostly to these two tables here” — Good God, did anybody watch that before they aired it? This is an unholy combination: a show with a lighthearted, bombastic comedy style that ends up coming across like the British “The Office”. It hurt. A lot.

What else? This was a very low point for Carla. What I see going on is that the situation Carla is in has pushed her into territory where Judy Reyes doesn’t have a good grasp on the character anymore. Reyes has always been unmatched among the cast in her ability to play dramatic, emotional moments well (only John C. McGinley comes close), and she played early-seasons Carla — the stable, no-nonsense one — to perfection too. But post-motherhood Carla is very different, and Reyes is apparently trying to play her somewhere between her two strong points. I really don’t think that’s where the character is, though. The problem hasn’t been all that apparent lately because Carla’s role is largely diminished, unfortunately, but I’ve been thinking this for a while.

This was also a low point for Elliot. Once again, two different stages of the character are coming into conflict. This episode brought back very early Elliot’s neuroses, but she reacts to her neuroses being triggered like the later-seasons, less neurotic Elliot does. Her reaction to being handed towels by a redhead was rather uncomfortably overwrought. I think early-seasons Elliot would have reacted by just making her eyes impossibly large, which was something of a trademark of hers back then. She broke her own Rule by talking to someone while pooing. She created ridiculous unnecessary drama in her relationship (once again, I understand this has to happen for plot purposes, but it still felt wrong). And, most disturbingly, they teetered on the edge of eating-disorder territory with Elliot starving herself to look good in a bathing suit, and tried repeatedly to extract humor from it.

Nothing made me laugh except the JD/Turk gay jokes and “they got brothers on the money”. But the rest — aimless and tone-deaf, and still smacking of sloppy writing, acting and editing. I mean, it may have sounded like I didn’t like the previous episode but I did; I was laughing for most of it and never felt uncomfortable. This one made me feel uncomfortable for a lot of reasons. I hope this is the low point of the season. I want Scrubs to go out with a bang, not a thpppt. The rest of the season has been pretty good by the standards of S6 and S7; don’t drop the ball now, guys. You’re in the home stretch. (I apologize for the mixed metaphor.)

One development next week that I await with slight trepidation: the trailer showed Bill Lawrence playing the priest who marries the Janitor and Lady. And while Bill Lawrence is one of the most excellent people in all of TV (though I have to say Josh Schwartz probably holds the title right now), I really don’t like it when people on the crew of a show get speaking roles. Mike Schwartz is a good example of why I don’t. Hopefully Bill Lawrence will not be another.

Jesus, what a sad state of affairs. Not only could they not afford Zach Braff for this episode, but they couldn’t afford John C. McGinley, Ken Jenkins, Judy Reyes OR Neil Flynn? Is this credit crunch-related or is it just Scrubs being pressed for attention as usual?

There is some good news. First is that the intern-related plots on this episode are exactly what I was referring to in my last Scrubs post. The interns’ world is progressing as the old hands (all TWO OF THEM in this episode) observe. And the interns are turning out to be their own distinct characters, not just (entirely) clones of the main characters. And the way the interns’ separate world is being handled is exactly how I envisioned it in an ideal world.

Second is that there was an entire subplot about farting. An ordinary TV critic would probably look down their nose at that while giggling on the inside, but I make no bones about the fact that I have the mind of a seventh grader, so I giggled on the outside. Unfortunately it fell flat at the end, but I’m just happy in a very immature sort of way that they actually made an entire subplot about farting.

My gut feeling, and immediate reaction, was that the comedy was lame. This is odd, because I can point to a lot of moments that made me laugh: Katie putting a satellite dish on the homeless guy, the homeless guy saying “Pass”, the “hivy” dance, Turk’s rant at the beginning about Disneyland, Turk’s rant about women farting… So I’m not completely sure why the comedy felt so lame.

I can pick out a couple of reasons, though. First and foremost, there was no Janitor, and really, there’s not much you can do without the Janitor. Second, too much of it had that rambling, aimless quality that marred the second half of season 4, occasional parts of season 5 and most of season 6. There’ll be a lame setup for a lame joke that ends with a mostly impotent punchline, and it all feels like a waste of time. I refer here specifically to the joke about the guy and the tongue in the hazmat bin. Some of it smacked of poor writing, directing or editing. There were a lot of Scrubs-laugh-track-substitute musical stings that felt clumsy and ill-timed, and a lot of shots that felt pointless and out-of-place.

The conversation between Elliot and Turk at the end had me rolling my eyes. This is a common complaint for TV shows, but here it is again: people don’t talk like that. They were talking like self-help books. I realize now that that was the writers not knowing what to do without JD’s voiceover narration. And, while there was an excuse for avoiding voiceover narration, it was an opportunity to have other characters analyze themselves, since JD doesn’t often do that. So I suppose in some sense it was interesting, but it was pretty poorly executed.

I got very concerned when, during that conversation, they mentioned Elliot and Turk getting together. I realize that they’re going to have to artificially throw some kind of wrench in the JD-Elliot works before the end of the season, but the thought of using Turk to do so might just keep me awake at night.

Then there’s the episode-ending (and uncomfortably emo) revelation that Elliot doesn’t see herself continuing to be a doctor. You’d have to be blind not to see the setup for a drastic life change for Elliot towards the end of the season, even if they completely ignore it next episode (which I have little doubt they will). I’m not sure what the specific nature of that change might be (what would she do instead?) but it’s good they’re making an attempt at justifying it, almost early enough for it not to feel like a convenient season-ending plot contrivance. It did involve a “crazy long oner”, to borrow Bill Lawrence’s phrase: an extremely long single shot. It’s hard to top season 1, episode 19 (from opening to title sequence, over two minutes, is one continuous shot — watching it is a little nerve-wracking for me) but I do like that style.

Whatever the reason, it’s unfortunate that Scrubs’ last season has to be hamstrung by money. And it really goes to show how important Zach Braff is to the show. If this is Bill Lawrence’s way of test-driving Scrubs without Braff, then I hope he realizes it’s not going to work out. Sarah Chalke and Donald Faison were barely able to give any cohesion to this episode, so if all of the main actors are gone, there’s little hope. Granted, without all the main actors there’s a chance for a fresh start, but they’d have to anoint a new JD-like main character, and I don’t see a clear candidate among the interns. They test-drove some voiceover narration from the interns last week, but it’s hard to say how that went. It felt like it always has on Scrubs when there’s a guest narrator — wrong.

So we’re at episode 13. I assume the season is going to be 22 episodes long, meaning there are nine episodes left. This means there are just over three total hours of Scrubs left in its entire run. Knowing that makes the lame-joke time-wasteage and the budget-induced actor shortage even more painful because I can feel the precious remaining minutes of Scrubs ticking away.

I sure used a lot of hyphenated words in this post, huh?

I know I haven’t been doing much writing about Scrubs lately. It’s because this is the middle of the last season, and right now the writers are primarily killing time until the end of the season when all the important stuff will be wrapped up, and it shows. There aren’t a lot of new things to do. This episode was about interns and their foibles, but I seem to remember a lot of very similar plots in season 5. Last week’s episode was just a few random self-contained subplots living in the same episode.

I’m rather pleased with what they’re doing with the Janitor. I’m tempted to think it’s a result of the little budgetary issue wherein the producers apparently can’t afford to pay all of the lead actors all the time, so in each episode one of them is conspicuously absent, or present for only one scene, or present only as a voice over a phone. The result of this is that it opens up more space for Janitor plots, and there were some good ones this week. The way he effortlessly handles messing with three new interns as well as JD (and presumably others, off-camera) just makes it more clear that he is the true ruler of the hospital.

So on to the more pressing issue: the new interns. I like that the writers are starting to give them their own actual personalities, instead of just grab bags of random quirks, which is what tended to happen in seasons 5+ with interns (except ones central to plots, like Keith). Best of all, they have their own ridiculous dramas, like the one with Katie and that guy in the elevator. The overall impression is that in the background of the main characters’ lives, a new little season 1-type world is developing among the new interns. It’s a charming little tableau. So while the main characters are going about their mildly interesting plotlines, the new interns embroil themselves in their own little shenanigans like making out in an elevator, squaring off against the Janitor, etc. It’s like a world within a world, except the inner world is also a throwback to early Scrubs. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

The problem, of course, is that there isn’t a whole lot the writers can make out of this phenomenon. The whole point is that it’s a backdrop. It can’t take primacy or it’ll ruin the whole thing. I don’t know if the writers can be bothered to keep it up for the sake of old fans like me who are probably the only ones who like it. Oh well.

This leads me to discussion of a theory that has been advanced on the Internet. Once you look at it as season-1-within-season-8, and combine it with the knowledge that the lead actors won’t stay on for another season, you can’t help but suspect that this might be a set-up for a continuation or spinoff after season 8 ends. I can say out of hand that I really don’t like that idea. First of all, they seem to be setting up the interns to parallel the main characters, and where are you going to go with a spinoff like that? What is there to say with those characters that’s new? Wouldn’t it just be a rehash of old seasons? Second, if such a continuation/spinoff is set in Sacred Heart, there’d be the obvious problem of explaining where all the main characters went, but there’d also be the issue that it would just seem wrong not to have them there. It would be like staying in high school an extra year after all your classmates have graduated.

And, oh, shall we talk about horrendous self-referential vignettes? Because there was a surfeit. First of all, the pimp fantasy. This hurt me physically to watch. The pimp fantasy, of season 2 episode 19 (yes I remember that without looking it up), is one of the greatest in the history of Scrubs. (In fact, that episode came as part of a streak of 4 episodes with some of the greatest fantasies ever: pimps, 99 Luftballons, the Rerun Dance, and Candy Man.) Everything about it was perfect. And here, they messed it all up. Everything good about the original was gone. Then there was Elliot’s “told you so dance”. This is from season 1, episode 16 (also remembered that without looking it up). The original was good because it was brief. This one was anything but. It was dragged out and out and out until it was painful. It could have worked if Elliot just did the dance for a few seconds (just by herself) and then they immediately cut to another scene.

Self-reference is a very difficult thing to do. Do it right and it’s hilarious, a great reward for old fans with sharp eyes and long memories. Do it wrong and it’s a joke fallen flat, confusing for people who don’t get it and not funny or clever to people who do.

I thought season 8 had found old-season fantasy style again, but it turns out they haven’t really. The biggest problem seems to be that they call attention to fantasies too much. It’s like they’re waving and pointing and yelling “look! They’re daydreaming! It’s funny!” I think this is part of why fantasies are so unnecessarily long lately. They’re trying to make sure everyone notices. But we notice even if they’re short.

My last complaint: the black surgical intern. First, he came out of nowhere and apparently we’re supposed to accept him as one of the main intern characters this season, when we as yet have very little idea what his deal is. Second, what kind of intern has the balls (or stupidity, or whatever) to chew out a table full of his superiors? Third, his lines are terrible. It sounds like he’s reading out CliffsNotes about the show.

Most of the interns suffer from the usual short-term recurring-character problem of being poorly written and acted (Derek most of all), but the exception this season is Denise, played by Eliza Coupe. In a very short time at the beginning of the season she turned out to be an original, multifaceted character, and Coupe plays her adroitly. The way she fits into the hospital is, in its basics, the way Elliot would have fit in as an intern with her current personality. It’s fascinating to watch. She’s by turns a reflection of some of Elliot’s character traits and a counterpoint to JD’s wishy-washy emotionality. I don’t know how she’ll fit into the overall tying-up of the show, but I hope she gets some not-insignificant recognition.

I know to beware of premature optimism, but I think Scrubs has hit its stride for this season.

The humor is back in force. They successfully executed a prolonged, obvious joke and made it hilarious — the “Turk is the authority on pleasing JD sexually” joke. It was written and acted perfectly. Also, the Janitor keeps getting monotonically better, so I figure by the time the show ends he’ll have set some kind of record for Most Jaw-Dropping Non Sequitur. “Don’t marry a German. They have monkey feet.”

Actually, I think maybe my brain is regressing to seventh-grade level or something. I giggled uncontrollably at every implication that JD was gay or female. There were several. “I…like bangin’ dudes…so…” “I’ve heard that’s nice.”

Speaking of which, I am a fan of the interaction between JD and his ridiculous intern. Like I’ve said before, you can see a sort of wrapping-up through this. JD has stepped into the role that Cox used to have, and brought his own style to it.

Episode 6 was pretty clearly the better of these two. It took two long-running Scrubs norms and turned them on their heads: JD-Elliot and Cox-Kelso. I believe this is a record for longest time span, in episodes, that JD and Elliot have managed to stay together harmoniously. Cox’s meta-commentary agrees with my assessment: maybe they really have entered into some sort of post-angst stable state. That’s how it looks without regard to the fact that this is the beginning of a season of a TV show, anyway. With that external consideration in mind, I have to believe there’s going to be some sort of angst-ridden disruption before the season wraps up. I don’t know if it’ll cause JD and Elliot to break up or not, but like I’ve said before, this is too early for happily ever after.

Of course, it’s possible that they’ll put the relationship in a magical time capsule where nothing happens to it while other events proceed as normal. This is accomplished by not showing it and mentioning it only in passing, as demonstrated in episode 5.

Cox-Kelso is a nice little thread because it brings out both of their human sides at once, and is a significant character development for Cox. He’s stopped being an obstruction to himself, and is being rewarded for his good service.

When are they going to get tired of the joke of Kelso getting infinite muffins on demand? I’m tired of it. The writers need to get tired of it because it was almost funny once and then never funny ever again.

OK I would write more except there is some kind of football game occurring that requires my attention.

I mean technically there was an episode 3 last night too, but honestly it hardly matters. It was unremarkable except for a couple of truly epic Janitor rants.

The reason episode 3 hardly matters is because of what happened in episode 4. I didn’t see it coming: I didn’t expect them to confront JD-Elliot so early in the season, and so directly. They took all those years of pent-up complexity that I mentioned and turned them inside-out. They acknowledged the special significance of it with the blacked-out set. That was an excellent idea, and probably the only way to really do the thing properly.

JD and Elliot’s conversation about their relationship struck the right note. They come to grips with the complexity of their relationship without just stating it as if it were a synopsis on the Wikipedia page. And the feeling it left me with was a pretty accurate summary, and in a way reflects how the characters must feel. I really wish the thing could work out… even in the face of all the concrete evidence that it can’t. At the end of the episode I felt satisfied but with a lingering unease, much like I imagine the characters must feel. You can feel hopeful that they have in fact learned from their mistakes, and grown up as people, like they mentioned during the Talk, but you don’t know if that’s going to be enough to clear the hurdles they encountered all those other times.

The conversation even revealed a couple of things to me that I hadn’t realized, like Elliot’s penchant for “safe but boring guys” ever since the end of season 3, and that JD has undergone character changes almost as deep as Elliot’s. It all combines into a somewhat frightening realization: JD and Elliot are the only ones who could possibly make each other truly happy, but it’s not clear that it’s possible at all. And therein lies the central question of their whole relationship, which I can only hope the rest of the season will answer adequately.

I’m afraid there’s going to be a relapse of a problem that has plagued Scrubs in its later years: the shitty continuation. One episode will build up an important plot, and the episode ends on a high note, with the important plot to be continued in the next episode. Then the next episode takes that plot, drops it into the toilet and pees on it. This happened notably after “My Lunch” (the super-serious episode of season 5) and across the end of season 6-beginning of season 7. I think the next episode will treat this new development with too much levity, and possibly just knock it all down and restore the status quo before the first commercial break. Of course, they could always surprise me. But I believe something like that will happen before the end of the season — there’s too much left of the season for this to be “happily ever after”.

Actually, I just had an idea. What if the next episode were filled with very subtle homages to season 1 episode 15, “My Bed Banter and Beyond”? In the episode before that one, there had been a similar plot development. Never mind, this is a bad idea. I don’t trust this show to do self-homages any more, given the grievously ham-handed homage to “My Sex Buddy” in this episode. Jesus, talk about breaking the mood. Speaking of breaking the mood: the outtakes at the end. See my point?

And apart from that, it’s surprisingly pleasant and natural to have Dr. Kelso acting like a real person. He’s no longer JD and Elliot’s boss, so it makes sense for him to treat them more as equals. He doesn’t even browbeat Ted, which I guess is why Ted feels the need to browbeat himself. In the later years of the show it became clear that Kelso had a human side, and now it’s become his default. His concern for JD and Elliot’s happiness is a startling change, but makes their decision to give their relationship a try that much more satisfying. You can tell the show is winding down when Cox and Kelso are both mellowing out (the other overarching theme of this episode).

Now that the ridiculous literary analysis of a sitcom is over with, here are some miscellaneous notes. Remember in the last post, I mentioned the Scrubs teleport? Well guess what, it happened in episode 3, and they came very close to meta-commentary on it. There’s also a disheartening epidemic of stupidly predictable jokes. In episode 3, I saw the “same dress” gag coming the second Elliot spilled coffee on herself, and that joke wasn’t even funny the first time. In episode 4, as soon as JD said, “I’ve changed too,” I said, “I have a beard now,” and he said, “I have a beard now”. And, of course, the setup at the beginning of the episode for JD and Elliot’s talk was eye-rollingly obvious. I suppose there’s not much that can be done about that, but still, it hurt me on the inside.

The analysis resumes next week! Keep your eye out.

Oh, one last thing. I found another inconsistency:

• Elliot, season 2, episode 16:
  

  I talk to myself. I talk to my cat. I talk to three separate shrinks about the fact that often my cats respond to me in my mother’s voice.

  Elliot, season 3, episode 5:
  

  I don’t know what it is, but all cats hate me. I mean, if I even make eye contact with them, they freak out.

Scrubs is on TV again, for what is almost certainly its last season as something recognizable as Scrubs. A bunch of major cast members have supposedly said that they’re leaving after this season, and while I suppose technically you could have a show without them, it wouldn’t be Scrubs.

A while back, there were Internet rumors that Bill Lawrence had said season 8 would be more like the early seasons tone-wise. Longtime readers will certainly know that the early seasons of Scrubs are, in my opinion, the best. So on the surface this obviously sounds like good news. But I’m generally suspicious of great things that have lapsed into mediocrity, and then promise a return to roots, like, for example, a certain heavy metal band whose name begins with “Metallic”. I expected Scrubs’ season 8 to be a continuation of the tone of seasons 6 and 7, but pretending to be something it’s not. They might try to make it like seasons 2 and 3, but I figured they’ve forgotten what it was that made those seasons good.

So I was pleasantly surprised by the first two episodes of season 8. They’re funny. I was actually reminded forcefully of season 3 by the first few scenes of the first episode. Quite apart from the return to top form of the humor, there are a bunch of encouraging new developments. The best is the JD-Cox rapport (Perry Cox, not Courteney Cox). Cox’s grudging acceptance of JD as an equal and JD’s slide into weary cynicism feel like developments that have been in the making for years, and are finally coming to light. It’s all perfectly done and makes perfect sense.

Courteney Cox as the new Chief of Medicine is all right. I don’t think she plays the role quite right but of course it could be worse. It doesn’t feel like a stupid stunt-cast. Also, ex-Friends actors keep appearing on shows that I like and demonstrating that they’re not completely worthless as actors. It is always surprising.

The Janitor is, as always, still funny. I think even if Scrubs goes on until the end of time and everything else has fallen to ruin, the Janitor will still be funny. And I’m sure the fact that he’s fired will have no bearing on what sort of shenanigans he can create.

Fantasies are back, and while they’re not all that good, the fact that there seem to be quite a few of them is a good sign.

There were some lapses, like Jimmy the Orderly. Those jokes were dragged out for far too long, à la season 6.

The plots are not really like early seasons. Season 1 was all about the overwhelming weight of being an intern. Season 2 was about the characters’ personal lives and the heavy demands placed on it by their work. Season 3 was about the characters growing up and achieving the balance they’d been seeking in season 2, culminating in Turk and Carla’s wedding. Not coincidentally, once season 3 was over the show slightly lost its way; a lot of the plots in seasons 4-6 just felt like the writers killing time. But the problem is that it doesn’t make sense to have those plots anymore. Those challenges have been overcome; the challenges now are new. The main characters are in their thirties and they’re fully competent medical professionals. The personal and professional demands on them are different. There is no more rising tumult as in the early seasons, but instead a settling-down. This is a difficult backdrop against which to have exciting or wacky plots. Any weird relationships created for the characters won’t have the same causes and effects as they did in early seasons, so they’ll feel forced and artificial. What I’m trying to get at is that the plots in this season shouldn’t be like those in early seasons. Tone, sure, but not plots. It remains to be seen how early-season tone mixes with late-season plot.

If they’re going for early-season tone, one major thing they need to stay away from is meta-commentary. For example, a common visual device is what some of the DVD commentary refers to as “the Scrubs teleport”: a character will be in the distance somewhere, like down a hall, then the shot cuts away from that angle for a second and then back, and the distant character is suddenly up close. Meta-commentary on this would be an observing character saying, “How did he get here so fast?” or something similar, which has actually happened and needs to die. These strange Scrubs-world things are funniest if they’re treated as perfectly normal.

Last thing: those little outtake things that play over the end credits. I’m not a fan: they pretty handily break the flow at the end of the episode. The second episode is a semi-serious one, which is spoiled by the outtake.

Since this is the final season of Scrubs in its current form, I think the writers are going to have to do some wrapping-up at the end of the season. I speak mostly of JD-Elliot. Right now it hangs neutral, I think. I don’t really know because season 7 was originally supposed to wrap it up but then the writers’ strike made a total hash of it. So now that the Elliot-Keith relationship has been brought to some sort of closure (in a completely lame 5-minute subplot of the first episode) we might see the resumption of tensions between JD and Elliot. My guess is that they will each have a relationship with another person, and in the course of these they will realize they’re supposed to end up together. I can only hope that whatever happens, it does justice to the seven years’ worth of pent-up complexity in their relationship.

Another thing that needs wrapping up is Dr. Cox. It seems natural and obvious that he should become the new Chief of Medicine, and I’m sure quite a bit of story mileage could be extracted from his trials and tribulations in that job. I think that would be a nice way to end the series, thematically: Cox is Chief of Medicine, JD is an attending — things change but life goes on.