Now that The Donald has moved off of NBC’s piece of prime real estate — Thursday night’s Must-See TV — “Scrubs” is back where it belongs. But the often-overlooked dramedy is only subletting the space, it seems, until Trump gets back to business in the fall.
(MSNBC is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC.)
While “Scrubs” was training to help anchor NBC’s Thursday schedule, “The Apprentice” wriggled its way into Americans’ hearts and became, in the words of NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker, the “improbable replacement for Friends.”
Up until Trump reared his rabbit-furred head on the Peacock Network, “Scrubs” was the top contender for the title of heir apparent to Ross, Rachel and company. If not next in line for the actual “Friends” slot — “Joey” will likely get that — it seemed virtually assured a spot on Thursdays. Instead, NBC has yanked this show all over the schedule. Inexplicably, it’s been preempted, shuffled and skipped.
The fact that “Scrubs” is destined to be indefinitely stranded on Tuesdays is bad news for viewers, particularly ones who would have gravitated to NBC’s Thursday night lineup out of habit — and discovered this weird, wonderful pearl. Rarely has a show so skillfully blended absurd situations and likable, quirky characters. Where else are you going to see a little person punch someone in the groin, a baby dressed in a sailor suit, or…Erik Estrada?
Its numbers aren’t “Friends” huge, but they could be. “Scrubs” is seasoned, primed and — after paying its dues — entitled to become one of NBC’s top shows. With an ensemble is as tight as any cast on television, “Scrubs” is ready to be discovered by the masses. All it needs is a high-profile spot to strut its stuff.
A bunch of charactersLed by Zach Braff and Donald Faison as young docs John “J.D.” Dorian and Chris Turk, the show revolves around their longtime friendship as they kick off their careers at Sacred Heart Hospital. “ER” fans, take note: Their ups and downs are reminiscent of Carter’s first year in the emergency room, with a few more fart jokes.
J.D.’s got an on-again-off-again relationship with fellow doc Elliot (“Roseanne’s” Sarah Chalke), who started as an uncertain flake but is shedding her debutante skin and becoming more confident with every episode. Strutting surgeon Turk is romancing Carla (Judy Reyes), the seemingly put-together, no-nonsense nurse with insecurities and neuroses of her own. The show would be a stellar ride with just those four, but it’s so much more than that.
Hospital chief Dr. Bob Kelso snaps and barks, but over the show’s three seasons he’s revealed a soft spot in his mostly black heart for the hospital, its doctors and, strangely, folk music. Ted, the suicidal attorney, enjoys barbershop quartets and looking for a wife at his neighborhood Korean church. And the janitor, named…Janitor, might not be great at plunging a toilet, but he’s perfect as J.D.’s prank-playing, lie-telling nemesis. “I only got about an hour and a half of work around here,” he tells J.D. “And the rest of the time I track you like an animal.”
And, of course, The Todd, the most inappropriate dude in medicine, for whom anything can be effortlessly turned into a double entendre. Todd: “I’d like to double her entendre.”
Gruff but lovableThe best of the bunch is John C. McGinley’s crunchy-on-the-outside-soft-in-the-middle attending physician Dr. Perry Cox. The veteran doctor pounds hard at the newbies’ armor, not to break through, but to toughen them. His machine-gun delivery and wide-eyed mock sincerity grabs onto the camera every time he enters a scene — and doesn’t let go.
One of his trademark bits is to call J.D. women’s names: Ginger, Shirley, Wilma — there must be dozens, if not hundreds by now. And just when you think he’s run out of ideas, he simply calls his protégé “Girl’s Name,” leaving the audience amazed at the character’s ability to hurl a barb with surgical precision and just keep on ranting. Cox points his razor-sharp wit at the inexperienced doctors, but also at authority figure Kelso: “They hate you, Bob,” he says in one episode. “They hate from the bottom of your hooves to the top of your pitchfork. They hate you. By God, they hate you good.”
That’s the way it is with this show. The writers revel in playing with the form, dishing up Ally McBeal fantasy sequences one second, heart-ripping pathos the next. It’s “M*A*S*H” with better looking leads. “Scrubs” is a stylized, one-camera, shot-on-film, no-laugh-track half-hour, which gives producers a far more cinematic playbook to reference; standard “According to Jim” rules don’t necessarily apply. (Shame on NBC for adding giggles to “Scrubs” promos, as if the audience wouldn’t get the joke without a prerecorded chuckle to lead the way.)
As a result, the humor is often surreal and mind-numbingly hilarious, punctuated by an out-of-nowhere British accent, bizarre internal conversation, odd camera angle, or subtle expression. And it’s the most catchphrase-worthy show since “Seinfeld.” All of America should be using terms like “bajingo,” “Tasty Coma Wife” or “roof poopers” in everyday conversation. This bunch of actors is obviously having a great time with the sharp, clever scripts.
Paging Dr. Guest StarAnd it’s not just the regular cast. Unlike “Will & Grace,” which has made a sub-industry of hiring iconic pop superstars (Elton John, Cher, Madonna), “Scrubs” sticks with a younger, hipper class of guests, from Tara Reid and Amy Smart as J.D.’s sometime girlfriends to Scott Foley as Elliot’s dolphin-training squeeze.
Brendan Fraser’s appearances as Cox’s impish — and seriously ill — brother-in-law started out as relatively standard tragicomic fare, until “Scrubs” wrapped up Fraser’s character with the phenomenal “Sixth Sense”-like episode “My Screw Up,” which was as dramatic and memorable as any TV show this year. Even Christa Miller (creator Bill Lawrence’s real-life wife), in a recurring role as Dr. Cox’s shrewy ex, shines here, leaving memories of her flat performance as Drew Carey’s sidekick behind.
Thanks to Lawrence, who also created “Spin City,” there’s also been a near-weekly parade of folks from Mayor Winston’s office checking in to the hospital, including Heather Locklear, Richard Kind and Michael J. Fox, whose two-episode turn as a surgeon with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder gave ratings a brief but impressive boost.
“Scrubs” is a perfect hybrid of comedy and drama, ideal to bridge the gap between the cartoonish hijinks of “Will & Grace” and the deadpan bedpan moroseness of “ER.” It fit oh-so-snugly on Thursday, but maybe audiences will finally get the word and, despite quietly existing on Tuesdays, it’ll emerge as the breakout hit it deserves to become.
And who knows: Maybe next year it’ll move again…to a permanent home on Must-See Thursday.
Mr. Trump, watch your back.Brian Bellmont is a freelance writer living in St. Paul, Minn.