Unforeseen Consequences

Now this is more like it.

With Zach Braff gone, SMS is finally hitting its stride. It’s a sad situation, really — the guy who drove a show for eight years became such a dead weight in its spinoff that it’s a relief when he’s finally gone.

I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but in this episode it seems like the writers really found a good identity for SMS’s main character, Lucy. Whether they’ll actually stick with it for more than a week, or ditch it in favor of whatever’s convenient to the theme every week, remains to be seen. Viz. my favorite Scrubs inconsistency: “You never cared what anybody thought” vs. “You always cared way too much about what everybody thought”.

Do I sound cynical? I think I sound cynical.

Anyway, Lucy is finally getting an identity, and though I still believe the identity is pretty much just Elliot minus twelve years (viz. the perfect rapport they had as student and mentor in this episode, much more believable than JD and Lucy), I don’t see that as a bad thing. Elliot’s “New Elliot” personality was brought in abruptly at the beginning of the third season of Scrubs, and I think there was more potential for humor from her “Old Elliot” personality than they wanted to bother with. So we have Lucy to fill in what we missed out on. They’ve given her a completely dysfunctional crazy-filter, and a lot of crazy. Equals fun.

As a bonus, in this episode, Cole the tool got some character development that mostly avoided the Two Tired TV Tool Tropes: Tool Continues to Be Tool and Skates By, and Tool Turns Out to Have Hidden Depths. This episode almost had him turning out to have hidden depths, but the important part is that they weren’t hidden depths that make him any better of a person. Slightly more sympathetic, maybe, but not so sympathetic that it ruins the fun of seeing him get pinned under a fat guy, or his reaction to being told to manually unclog someone’s butt.

Everyone else had strong showings in this episode. I’ve sort of been worried about Turk all along, since he’s best in combination with one of the other Scrubs main characters (mainly JD or Carla). This episode didn’t completely put that worry to rest because most of his great lines came in scenes with Elliot or Kelso. (“First rule of Pillow Fight Club is you don’t talk about…”) But his delivery during Lucy’s botched presentation was spot-on, and I do believe he has a bright future with Denise. Their rapport will obviously not be the same as JD and Turk, since Denise is quite a bit more of a man than JD, but I think it’ll work. Kelso was great. Elliot was as all right as late-seasons Elliot can be. Drew and Cox seem to make a good team. It’s all clicking. It’s like a New Year’s miracle. A good start to the decade.

So there’s a new show on. It’s called Scrubs: Med School (SMS).

You have to consider SMS as coincidentally having the same name and a few of the same cast members as Scrubs. While Scrubs the original lost its purpose in its later seasons, degenerating into a set of episodes that had no particular raison d’être, one good thing about SMS is that it’s a chance to throw all that shit away and start over with a fresh premise. Consequently, it will take a little while for the new show to find its stride, and that’s OK. Hopefully the writers (and actors) can learn lessons from the trajectory of Scrubs, avoid a few mistakes and shortcut a few learning curves.

Thematically, SMS is almost a prequel to Scrubs. Scrubs started with its main characters just starting their internships; SMS is starting with its main characters just starting med school. This means that if SMS survives for four seasons (kinda doubtful), it will have come full circle, back to the beginning of Scrubs. That could be an external barrier that forces SMS to quit before it goes all funky in old age like Scrubs did.

The biggest problem I can see right now is the main character, Lucy. Halfway through the first episode I’d forgotten her name. (To be fair, I often do this with new TV shows.) Her voiceover narration doesn’t work. She’s overacting a bit. This is to be expected since she’s still trying to find her character. (Zach Braff (who was also an unknown when he was cast in Scrubs) didn’t have this problem.) Most concerning of all, though, is that we’ve been through this character before. A struggling, nervous, easily flustered, deeply insecure girl with rampant emotions and an occasionally detrimental (but ultimately successful) need to prove herself? Sound familiar? Yes, I’m afraid this character is going to end up being Elliot redux.

The good news is that all of the other new characters (including Denise) have immense potential for both comedy and drama. I’ve already noted Denise’s potential in Season 8 posts. She can obviously be hilarious, and I sense that her personality is set up for some possibly excellent dramatic storylines. There’s a great danger that these can be overdone, of course, but for some reason I’m confident. Cole (the toolish privileged kid) is hilarious already. One of the first two episodes’ best bits was the interplay between him and Denise. I kept waiting for her to punch his face out the back of his head. I still think that’ll happen eventually. But the interaction of two extremely stubborn people just bouncing off each other produces a lot of good comedy for cheap.

Number One (I honestly don’t know his name) is the most interesting. Funny at times (like his tendency to say “whore” when upset), he also seems like he has the potential for the best dramatic stories. Emotionally damaged, shady past, apparently naturally talented, and constantly being watched by the Eye of Cox. Amidst all this it looks like he has a deeply buried sensitive side too. He’s a great contrast to JD as Cox’s protégé.

In fact, the new characters are working out so well that when the show commits some egregious wretchedness like the opening scene of the premiere, it hurts all the more. Braff is back to being the New JD of Scrubs seasons 4-7. It’s awful when he’s trying to be funny. He’s OK in his more serious moments like when he’s dealing with Lucy. The comedy, though — the thing that bothers me about New JD is his extreme childishness. It’s even more abrasive now because SMS is supposed to be set a fair length of time after Scrubs — JD and Turk are teaching in med school, JD at some point married Elliot and made a baby in her. In short, he should have grown up since the end of Scrubs, and he’s done the opposite. He’s even back to being ridiculously needy with regard to Dr. Cox. He’s not a permanent character here, though, so it’ll be OK.

Now into the random notes section.

Humor based on accents is very offensive to my inner linguist. Those scenes with the Aussie med student actually made me feel uncomfortable. That better go out the window and right quick too.

The second episode was noticeably better than the first. It had fewer grating moments of failed comedy, it gave Lucy a true growth moment and just generally felt like a more cohesive unit. The premiere felt surprisingly scattered, like a series of unrelated scenes. Here I allow the use of my It’s Just the Pilot Rule, since, as stated before, SMS is a new show.

The new title sequence is appropriate, and I hope they don’t revert to the Scrubs title sequence. It’s a new show, new setting, new characters, so it should have a new title sequence. I’m not actually very fond of it, but I’m glad they made it.

I’ll definitely keep watching. After all these years with Scrubs (even though, as stated before, this is a new show), how could I not? It has unexpectedly large amounts of potential. But I will continue to be critical.