Back when I was in high school, one of the shows to watch was "Scrubs." Before Zach Braff became the subject of hipster ire, he was the indie heart-throb. Both charming and introspective, he had the acting chops to pull off the comedic and serious elements of his role. The thing is, most actors on the show were as well. That is a large part of what made the show great for a long time.
The show is centered around Braff's character John "JD" Dorian, a young intern who works his way to becoming a great doctor, ruining relationships, and trying to fix them. The strange thing about JD is that as a protagonist, he is both very compelling and entirely annoying. Self-absorbed, he's also likeable. It does get frustrating, especially later in the show, how frequently his redeeming moments come after he was a giant jerk, but at least he did figure it out, right?
In many ways, he is a lot like his tough-love mentor, Dr. Perry Cox (the always enjoyable John C. McGinley). Dr. Cox is every bit as self-absorbed as JD is, but he's less secretive about it. He openly berates his interns, is almost always hostile towards his friends and loved ones, and rarely shows affection. At the same time though, he is watching over these young doctors. He usually does the right thing, but he won't pat anyone on the back.
All of the characters are really like that. Carla is a prideful nurse who evidently gets insulted fairly easily by her superiors just because they claim to know better than she does. Elliot Reid is also easily thrown off, borderline psychotic when thinking of what others think of her. Turk is the hotshot surgeon who thinks he's the best at pretty much everything. Jordan is somehow even more hostile towards people as her husband (Dr. Cox). And the Janitor is literally in his own little world. Every one of the main characters is flawed and has elements that are totally unlikeable. And yet, they are likeable and do have redeeming qualities. In this way, they are surprisingly realistic, despite their goofy names and borderline caricature behaviors.
The strength of "Scrubs" is in how all of these disturbed and messed up individuals cultivate and grow their relationships, beginning as co-workers and eventually growing into a close-knit family. As the show progresses, they eventually work on some of their flaws through the typical aging process. Turk and Carla get married and start a family. Elliot comes into her own in a private practice. Even JD has to grow up as he watches his brother become successful, his father pass away, his friends marry and have kids. He even winds up with a child of his own! It's not just the young people growing up either. Dr. Cox has a family of his own and must struggle to find the balance between the tough-love act he has with his interns and being a relatively supportive father to his own kid. All the way at the top, Chief of Medicine Dr. Bob Kelso eventually has to deal with his forced retirement at the age of 65.
Like all great shows, there is a solid cast of background players as well. Ted is easily one of the most painful and hilarious characters on the show. Similarly, The Todd is every bit as funny as he is stupid. And there's also Doug, the intern who keeps screwing everything up to the point where he works in the morgue due to his ability to determine a patient's cause of death (since he has likely caused it at some point). Frankly, the Janitor and JD could have been its own thing, perhaps as little webisodes, as it was always entertaining to watch and seemed to happen outside of everything else.
It's easy to think of the show as one that jumped the shark after a few seasons. Most shows do (sorry, but "The Office" jumped after season four - how they pulled out another four seasons is beyond me). Indeed, the show does become less entertaining as time goes by. Come season six, you start to get a little bit tired of Turk and JD's immature antics. By season seven, you kind of just want JD to grow up. After all, he's been talking about it for a bunch of episodes already! Still, to say nothing interesting happens in later seasons isn't quite right. It's true, seasons one through three, as well as season five are clearly the best of the bunch, but the final season of Scrubs isn't all that bad itself. Apart from the general fatigue of some of these JD antics, they do some interesting things with Elliot. Additionally, the way that JD and Elliot reconnect after Sam is born is surprisingly organic. You see it coming, but you don't really sit there waiting for the moment, the way you used to wait for their typical moments in earlier seasons. Come the final season of "real Scrubs," you realize they aren't having one of those "moments." They're now older and more mature (in some respects), and as such, they are finally ready to actually form a relationship.
Note that I specific "Real Scrubs" because the actual final season of the show is so strange and different that it's only recognizable by the fact that McGinley and Donald Faison are regularly in it, with Braff making a few appearances. It's not necessarily bad, but it's profoundly less compelling with none of the supporting cast to make up for the main character deficiencies.
"Scrubs" is also a show that shouldn't age well, but it actually does. The format of having JD narrate can be a little tedious at times, and normally I don't much care for narration, but at times, they do use it well. They sometimes are a bit innovative with it as well. And it's always nice to see the occasional episodes where JD takes a back seat to another character. Additionally, a lot of the comedy is silly and almost Family Guy-esque with its use of cut-away fantasy sequences. Those get old, but they never feel quite as random or as stupid as in the aforementioned cartoon show.
The balance between comedy and serious content makes it both a funny and poignant show, with life lessons thrown into each episode. A lot of the jokes can be memorable, but more often than not you wind up remembering the sad ones. (For me, I always remember the episode when Brendan Fraser guest stars and has leukemia, or the one where Dr. Cox is ecstatic to find organs for a number of different patients, only to realize too late that those organs came from a patient infected with rabies.) These moments are usually made more powerful with effective use of music. "Scrubs" - at the same time as the classic "Orange County" - really popularized a lot of those indie acts, but that's also a staple of Braff fare.
I must admit, I didn't remember "Scrubs" being all that great when I went to rewatch it. I'm glad I did though. I do think seasons four, six, and seven are fairly forgettable, the one, two, three, five, and eight are surprisingly good. They definitely stand up better than other Bill Lawrence shows, and it didn't jump the shark nearly as hard. To be fair here though, Lawrence was essentially forced to keep dragging the show out for the final couple of seasons. He had intended to end it earlier, but faced pressure from the networks, especially after it uncharacteristically swapped from NBC to ABC.
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