© (C) 2010 ABC/photo by Adam Taylor Michael Mosley in SCRUBS - SEASON NINE - "Our Dear Leaders"

Television:

TV Review: SCRUBS - SEASON NINE - 'Our Dear Leaders'

The new cast continues to impress as the season (and maybe series) edges closer to its finale in an episode about 'leadership'

Grade: B
Stars: Kerry Bishe, Dave Franco, Michael Mosley, Eliza Coupe, John C. McGinley, Donald Faison
Writer(s): Corey Nickerson, Kevin Etten
Director: Peter Lauer
Release Date: Janaury 26, 2010

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By CARL CORTEZ, Contributing Editor
Published 1/27/2010

It’s been an up and down season for SCRUBS, as Season Nine has reinvented itself as a hybrid hospital/med school comedy keeping some of the core cast, bringing back others for cameos and introducing a whole new group of interns to potentially carry the show into the future.

Even though it looks pretty slim that a Season Ten might end up on the books, now that we’re just about the end of this season’s 13-episode run, the new cast is working fabulously alongside the old.

And with former stars Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke finished with their occasional appearances (we think, there's still two episodes to go), the new group have really become interesting and watchable additions to the show.

Is it still funny? Well, not exactly. The show occasionally has sporadic bits that induce a smile or small laugh (usually coming from John C. McGinley’s Dr. Cox character), but what this new group has done for the show is to actually ground SCRUBS again. In the past three years, became way too farcical and silly, what with the odd J.D. (Zach Braff) and Turk (Donald Faison) bromance and the increasing reliance on fantasy sequence.

Now the show is about becoming a good doctor again, making the grade and becoming the best person you can be.

Nice shift. And yes, we’ve seen it before, but at least it gives time for the new characters to find a rhythm (and yes, a personality) to guide the show into new directions if it does succeed in securing a Season Ten.

“My Dear Leaders” focuses on Cox instigating Hell Week for the new interns and taking Drew (Michael Mosley) under his wing, hoping to create a new “mini-me.”

Throughout the course of this season, Cox has called Drew his Number One, and it’s primarily because he sees a lot of him in Drew. Unlike J.D., Drew isn’t searching for constantly attention and acceptance. He just wants to start over, change his former bad ways and become the best doctor he can be. But that comes with the added responsibility of being looked at by his peers as “their leader.” Drew hates it, and wants to be left along, and Cox issues the mandate that he must ignore his fellow interns during Hell Week and focus being on a doctor.

Of course, it’s all a classic Dr. Cox trick. Drew is continually pulled back in, and realizes he can’t leave his fellow classmates in a lurch – thus, the makings of a great doctor and an even nobler leader (though Cox warns him to find a different acerbic leadership style than his own, because well, Cox owns it).

Drew’s relationship with Dr. Mahoney (Eliza Coupe) continues to be on the rocks because he said the dreaded “I love you” last episode, though there's resolution for that by episode's end. Coupe runs around most of the episode with what sounds like a cold (her voice is very fragile and weak), but she does get some good zingers opposite Turk toward the end (though her fantasy sequence is perhaps one of the bizarre and confusing, I think the show has ever produced).

Turk, on the other hand, is threatened by a Third World doctor who visits the hospital every now and again to raise money. Turk is the Chief of Surgery, but doesn’t want the advice from the show-off doctor, and needs to find a way to suck it up and still learn himself.

It’s nice that ABC continues to show its support for SCRUBS. And even though it pales to the show it once was, it still is an enjoyable and clever little program. And the new cast gets better each week. As much as it might seem like beating a dead horse to some, I for one, will be there for a Season Ten, if the powers that be see the potential in this new ensemble. I certainly have.

3967-3987

Reader Comments

from sez....
no.....it sucks. blonde girl, dumb, an likes ponies...a bit stereotypical..yawn.. the rest very nice add to the show...still of course not how it was. less funnier
2/1/2010 3:48:36 PM

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