When the first season of Scrubs premiered in 2001, I was just starting my senior year of high school. I followed the adventures of JD, Turk, Elliot, Carla, and the rest of the staff and patients at Sacred Heart Hospital as my own life spiraled in ways I couldn’t have possibly anticipated. By the time the final episode of the ninth season aired in 2010, these characters felt like they’d been part of the fabric of my life for ages, a source of comfort and familiarity when things got rough, so when I found out it was coming back twenty-five years after it first premiered, I was thrilled. Now, after having watched the first four episodes of the tenth season of a show that defined my late teens and early twenties, all I can say is, “Eh, it was fine.”
The season opens with Dr. John “JD” Dorian (Zach Braff) returning to Sacred Heart to check on a patient of his concierge medical practice. We learn he’s been doing this for a while, out of the fast-paced teaching hospital environment and into something that is decidedly more lucrative but far less satisfying, if the opening scene’s fantasy sequence is any indication. It isn’t any great mystery that he ends up sticking around by the end of the episode, especially after finding out that Turk (Donald Faison) has been seeming to suffer from burnout and depression. The opening episode does a great job of showing us where everyone has ended up and how, though alas the Janitor does not get the “where is he now” treatment. JD does point out that the new janitor likes him, but he has much bigger problems now than being accused of sticking a penny in a doorjamb.
The bulk of the conflict of the first four episodes has to do with JD’s new role in the hospital versus his position as a people-pleaser. It especially impacts his interactions with Elliot (Sarah Chalke), and unfortunately it seems like JD hasn’t really grown very much in terms of his ability to maintain decent, adult relationships since the last time we saw him.
JD may not have changed much, and neither has his epic bromance with Turk. Their friendship has always been the cornerstone of Scrubs, and Braff and Faison have always been famously close in real life as well. It shows in their effortless chemistry with one another, a sense that they’ve known each other so long that each is like an extension of the other. This revival absolutely wouldn’t have worked without both of them on board. Nor would it work without Chalke’s Elliot, who luckily has gone back to her somewhat high-strung roots and is no longer fully in “sexy late 00’s TV mode” which basically stripped her down to her base character traits and sex appeal. She’s back to being smart-but-high-strung and has some really great interactions with both JD and Turk that examine how all three of them have been enmeshed in each other’s lives and relationships for years. Carla (Judy Reyes) isn’t given quite as much screen time, which is a shame because she is a key part of the ensemble and her absence is noticeable.
As well as old friends to catch up with, there are new faces to meet. Under the tutelage of the OG Sacred Heart Interns are new doctors Amara (Layla Mohammadi), Dashana (Amanda Morrow), Blake (David Gridley), Sam, aka Tosh (Ava Bunn), and Asher (Jacob Dudman). They are unfortunately not as well fleshed out as the more familiar characters and aren’t really given enough to do to make them each stand out as individuals early enough. They each just come off as archetypes at first, and it takes quite a while for that impression to thaw. When it does, though, and we’re given a glimpse of who they are, it made me hope that the remainder of the season continues fleshing them all out because each of the actors is entertaining to watch, despite not having a lot to work with initially.
In addition to the new interns, there is also Sibby (Vanessa Bayer), a hospital administrator whose quirky exterior hides at the very least a fairly serious gambling habit, as well as Charge Nurses Francois (Michael James Scott) and Pippa (X Mayo), who don’t seem to have anything to them beyond incredibly well-synchronized clap-backs. In writing this I almost forgot to include Joel Kim Booster’s Dr. Park, not because he did poorly in the role, but because his character and the conflict he represents is basically dropped almost immediately.
One plot line I hope isn’t dropped in the rest of the season is the one exploring Turk’s depression. It’s brought up multiple times throughout the first four episodes and Faison does a great job depicting a man trying his best to be the person he used to be, without the energy to actually still be that person and meet all of his personal and professional obligations. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, and how dark this new version of Scrubs will ultimately get. After all, the series is famous for balancing humor and brutal pathos, as evidenced in the classic episodes “My Screw Up,” and “My Lunch.”
The original series explored the same concept with Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley), and a lot of what is shown in the first four episodes of Scrubs Season 10 seems like it might simply be plot points and character arcs from earlier seasons of the show, just shuffling the conflicts around amongst the characters. It’s the same issues, the same punchlines, and the same basic conflicts. One bonus, though, is that after twenty-five years, the core cast has gotten a bit better at communicating like the mature adults they are and far fewer of those conflicts revolve around miscommunication or the inability to just have a conversation with another person.
The tenth season of Scrubs maintains the same comedic tone as the original, with several laugh-out-loud gags and jokes throughout the episodes. The show is self-aware in that there are jokes that were okay in the earliest part of the 21st century that would no longer fly today, most of which revolve around Dr. Cox’s brutal treatment of his subordinates (instead of his signature “Newbie” nickname for JD, Cox instead starts calling him “Oldbie”). The most obvious example of this is Todd, whose horndog persona in the first nine seasons would absolutely, and rightfully, earn him a place in a sexual harassment seminar now. He’s still The Todd, but far more consensually.
Scrubs Season 10 is familiar and comforting, but there isn’t any kind of “wow” factor. It feels like another season of Scrubs, which is great on one hand, but on the other, I had hoped the show would give us something new or would have something novel to say. While I am looking forward to seeing the latter five episodes and how the season ultimately unfolds, season 10 doesn’t yet have any instant classic episodes, nor does it do anything new and exciting. It’s like putting on a warm, cozy sweater you’ve had for years and getting on a Zoom call with some old friends. It may not be super exciting, but it still makes you happy to see them again.
