Scrubs, where did it all go wrong?

KombuchaMshroom

What has happened to scrubs? First 3 seasons of the show were among the funniest seasons of any show on tv. From season 4 onwards though the show really started to go downhill with the show turning towards more slap stick comedy and every week having stupider and stupider "fantasys" which have really lost their impact (seriously what was with all that head seperate from body crap that went on for like a year).

Its a real shame as the show had the potential to be a true great but now it seems every episode is just JD falling over and creating crazy fantasy, with the show getting more and more desperate by the week.

Anyone else feel the same way?

Random

The show seemed to get way too serious

token56

It started out as a show about young interns and there journeys in becoming doctors. There was also some great character development along the way. However after the first 3 or 4 seasons they did as much as could be done with this and started to focus more on relationships and the family lives of the characters which is far less entertaining. Some characters have also gone into saturation if you will, most noticably JD and Carla (who i was never a big fane of anyway). Other characters they have changed, like Dr Cox, arguably the best characte in the earilier seasons he became less sarcastic etc and more of a caring father figure and my eyes less entertaining although he still has his moments.
I hope it ends soon and keeps some of its reputation as a great show.

Just my 2 cents.

kerry4sam

most of the on-screen chemistry between the characters seems to fade big time ... I'm currently watching the boxset for Season6 and well you can forget about the laughs - defo few and far between ... no real character standing out anymore ... they should have cut it off at the last season imo

Random

I can still rewatch the first few seasons over and over .. becoming harder to not just skip ahead a few mins when watching more recent episodes

Turnip2000

The fact that its on every other channel, every other hour, could also have a part to play in it becoming "boring".

Just like the Simpsons.......that show should have been buried years ago.

marco_polo

I think this philosophical piece sums up the later Scrubs series quite nicely

Sick Boy: It's certainly a phenomenon in all walks of life.

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: What do you mean?

Sick Boy: Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone forever. All walks of life: George Best, for example. Had it, lost it. Or David Bowie, or Lou Reed...

Mark "Rent-boy" Renton: Some of his solo stuff's not bad.

Sick Boy: No, it's not bad, but it's not great either. And in your heart you kind of know that although it sounds all right, it's actually just ****e.

newby.204

does anyone remember the musical episode , i mean for the love of god what were they thinking, also the happy days episode drove me up the fcuk!ng wall!! Also with zach Braff planning on leaving the show i fail to see how it could continue, or maybe it gives writers a chance to take it in a new direction, with possibly dr cox as the lead role, arguably the funniest character in the show!!

ziedth

I personally still like scrubs, I know its not half as good as the orginal three seasons but surely that should be a testiment to how good the orginal series where.

The fact is the scope of the show is way way to narrow to have the remain unchanged after 6 seasons. and change charaacters like Cox has to be done to flesh out the story lines.

I personally think that a half as good scrubs is still as good as most comedy's coming out at the moment.

I'll always tipp my hat to scrubs as it came the closest of any show/film to genuinely upset me when

Brendan Fraizer Died

.

seanybiker

i think its only getting better.

Creamy Goodness

Turnip2000 wrote: »

The fact that its on every other channel, every other hour, could also have a part to play in it becoming "boring".

Just like the Simpsons.......that show should have been buried years ago.

no one is forcing you to sit down and watch it are they?

Boo-yah

I think the main reason it went downhill is because of JD. When the show started off he was a believable, likable character but he descended into this squeaky voiced, annoying goofball

Dman001

ziedth wrote: »

I personally still like scrubs, I know its not half as good as the orginal three seasons but surely that should be a testiment to how good the orginal series where.

The fact is the scope of the show is way way to narrow to have the remain unchanged after 6 seasons. and change charaacters like Cox has to be done to flesh out the story lines.

I personally think that a half as good scrubs is still as good as most comedy's coming out at the moment.

I'll always tipp my hat to scrubs as it came the closest of any show/film to genuinely upset me when

Brendan Fraizer Died

.

I loved the episodes with

Brendan Fraiser.

They were brill along with the episode with Michael J. Fox. I watched a few episodes from the older seasons lately and I realised that JD does less of those slapstick/goofy jokes in the older episodes.

ironictoaster

I believe the reason why it went downhill is due how each episode had a moral at the end :mad: . I also believe the writers ran out ideas as well.

KnifeWRENCH

I agree with Boo-Yah (about JD becoming annoying) and creggy (about those stupid morals) To me the later episodes have lost their "edge" - not as many darkly comic moments.

Most of the characters went downhill, and new characters weren't that good. (Seriously, did Keith ever have a funny line? Was he only introduced to give Elliot something to do?)
I still love Bob Kelso though!

Hopefully though Scrubs will be remembered for the earlier episodes. My favourite episode ever, and probably the saddest, was

the one with the organ transplants

Morgans

I suspect Keith was brought in to maybe step into JD's shoes should Zach Braff feck off as was seemingly on the cards at one stage.

The endearing thing about Scrubs initially was the way they developed the support cast - Ted, Kelso, Janitor, Jordan - that stopped and they have become routine.

Writers seem to be remembering the formula that made it work initially and trying to replicate it, and failing.

It was a nice comedy, not anymore.

Pigman II

Um, excuse me sir. The thing is, there's not really anything wrong with Scrubs, it's as good as ever. But after so many years, the characters just can't have the same impact they once had.

Morgans

The one thing that is "really wrong with Scrubs" is that its not funny.

Otherwise its fine.

Wallpaper on your tv. Nice friendly chewing-gum for the eyes. It used to be more.

youcancallmeal

I think after six and a half seasons they have run out of steam big time. Season 6 was a low point with very poor episodes/story arcs like private dancer, musical episode, lazy flashback episode, Nurse Roberts dying and then coming back??, Elliot and Keith split up, J.D. and Kim's pregnancy and also pretty much any scene with the deeply unfunny Jordan in it!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

they realised after a few seasons that 3/4 of their viewing audience was female so they stopped trying to be a comedy and turned it into a weird drama, romance show with the occasional joke about how stupid men are and how awesome carla/elliot are.

KnifeWRENCH

youcancallme>al wrote: »

Elliot and Keith split up, J.D. and Kim's pregnancy and also pretty much any scene with the deeply unfunny Jordan in it!

Ah now, how can you not like Jordan? She's a great character. I think it's a pity she wasn't in it more often at the start.

Her and Cox are one of the all time great television couples imo.

HalloweenJack

Haven't seen a lot of the newer ones.

I always liked the show. I actually thought the first two series were pretty weak and got better after that (3 & 4 were brilliant).

I never really liked JD but agree that he's got more annoying over the run of the series. I thought his brother was a million times funnier.

For me, Kelso is the funniest character in the latest ones. Cox is still good but he has gone a bit soppy and then when he does blow his lid he overdoes it. Sad really.

kerry4sam

just saw the episode with the 'road-trip' in kelso's camper in season6 again and it still makes me laugh with the mixed bunch of characters together on the road-trip ... aww brings back some good memories from road-trips during my college-years

yurmothrintites

I personally love Scrubs. I admit that in the recent seasons that it doesn't have the same impact on it's audience, but the only season I feel was terrible was season five.

It also doesn't help that the writers transformed JD's character into a whiny, camp, annoying one.

Shmuck

I thought the first four seasons were great, then it went steadily downhill. I remember listening to an interview with the creator of the series and he said that he told the writers that once they get to 100 episodes they can start repeating storylines, so I think thats one of the main reasons why it's so ****e these days. Time to end it already.

yurmothrintites

The writers just don't seem to care about producing funny and relevant storylines anymore.

Since this next series will probally be the last and the show is moving to HBO in the US, it will probally be very bad or very good. I'm pretty confident that it will be the latter. The standard of the shows to come out of HBO has been pretty high in the last number of years i.e. Six Feet Under.

I just hope they don't screw up the last few episodes of of a brilliant show lie they did Friends.

ironictoaster

yurmothrintites wrote: »

The writers just don't seem to care about producing funny and relevant storylines anymore.

Since this next series will probally be the last and the show is moving to HBO in the US, it will probally be very bad or very good. I'm pretty confident that it will be the latter. The standard of the shows to come out of HBO has been pretty high in the last number of years i.e. Six Feet Under.

I just hope they don't screw up the last few episodes of of a brilliant show lie they did Friends.

HBO? I thought it was ABC or CBS?

YeatsCounty

Boo-yah wrote: »

I think the main reason it went downhill is because of JD. When the show started off he was a believable, likable character but he descended into this squeaky voiced, annoying goofball

Can't agree more. His character from season 4 onwards becomes intensely unlikeable once you realise that he never matures over the course of the series. He becomes foolish and constantly selfish every few episodes or so. The character of J.D. wouldn't be missed by me if he was written out at this point.

Also, the laughs just aren't there anymore.

Simi

I love scrubs and still watch it all the time. The first 3 seasons are nothing short of sitcom genius. The dark humour, the excellent character development etc.
In seasons 4 and 5, when the cast actually became doctors, it lost the character development, then gradually phasing out the medical stories making way for more personal stories, before finally descending into the slapstick comedy it is today.
I still enjoyed seasons 4 and 5, though not as good as the first 3, they were still funny. Then from start to finish seasons 6/7 were a total and utter disaster. Slapstick humour, terrible story lines, that have little or nothing to do with medicine, and unwanted expansion of the background characters, that with all due respect, should have stayed in the background!
I hope they can pull off some sort of revival of the quality of earlier episodes for this upcoming season. But I'm not optimistic .

PurpleBerry

I used to love Scrubs but I thought it was getting progressively worse. After the sequence of events where JD tells Elliot that he still loves her, Elliot leaves Sean and gets back with JD, JD then realises he doesn't love her, they break up, she finds someone else and he changes his mind again and decides "It should've been me", my love for the show died a little.

Personally I thought it got progressively worse, although I enjoyed the musical episode, but I kept watching. Probably because I had once enjoyed it so much that I hoped my fondness would return. Instead it was murdered by season 7 and I decided that I didn't enjoy the show anymore so I should stop watching. I haven't seen an episode since.

I'm glad I stopped watching. I've heard rumours that Zach and Bill (Lawrence) are leaving the show and I don't see how the show can continue successfully without them. Also, almost every season is "the last one" but it ends up getting "just one more". This must be incredibly annoying to the writers, they close off the storylines, thinking it's the end, and then have to open them again.

Elmo

It has been on too long. Like many American sitcoms it ran for too long. It should have been axed after season 4.

darkdubh

KombuchaMshroom wrote: »

What has happened to scrubs? First 3 seasons of the show were among the funniest seasons of any show on tv. From season 4 onwards though the show really started to go downhill with the show turning towards more slap stick comedy and every week having stupider and stupider "fantasys" which have really lost their impact (seriously what was with all that head seperate from body crap that went on for like a year).

Its a real shame as the show had the potential to be a true great but now it seems every episode is just JD falling over and creating crazy fantasy, with the show getting more and more desperate by the week.

Anyone else feel the same way?

Never found it that funny.

Sangre

It became **** when every supporting character suddenly had to be in nearly every scene.

Jazzy

they over loaded it with strong female characters and the 1 strong male character (dr cox) ended up looking like more of a tosser as time went on and just started losing every episode. when the scrubs got one over on him in the first 3 seasons it was a big deal, but now its every 5 minutes. the balance of the show was completely ruined as they sold out the characters. JD became gayer and gayer, Turk bent over to carla more and more, Elliot became a ballbuster (even tho there was already carla and cox's wife already) and Cox just got nastier and more pathetic rather then funnier.

then there was that Keith guy who elliot was going to marry... most generic boring thing ever (+ he played the part of whipped male too to elliots ballbuster).
Dr. Molly Clock at the start of season 4 was a perfectly good indicator of exactly when the show died. she was custom built to the audience they wanted and added absolutely nothing and no depth watsoever. "kooky" i believe is the phrase. Phoebe from friends was "kooky" for 10 years and she is frequently recognised as the most useless characters ever from a sitcom... even when they had a chance to redeem her by getting her to marry the science guy (played buy Hank Azaria) they didnt have the balls to follow through and got her to marry a generic round headed bore.
the writers of scrubs have obviously gone down the same line as they want to make the show last as long as possible and to do that, they have to sell out the characters.

i actually couldnt care less about the new series that have been on (is it 7 or 8?). it started by JD having a kid with a blow in and then i dunno. i remember one really dumb episode based in a fantasy land like camelot or some nonsense. think i turned it off.

the first 3 series are amazing and i still love them. i watch them on E4 whenever they are on too. its such a pity the writers lost their balls / chased the $$$ instead of making a dignified show that could stand the test of time.

RIP

Elmo

Phoebe from friends was "kooky" for 10 years and she is frequently recognised as the most useless characters ever from a sitcom... even when they had a chance to redeem her by getting her to marry the science guy (played buy Hank Azaria) they didnt have the balls to follow through and got her to marry a generic round headed bore.

No I think Phoebe actually lasted to the end of friends I never really saw her as one of the main characters in that show, I think Ross would be considered far worse then Phoebe.

i actually couldnt care less about the new series that have been on (is it 7 or 8?). it started by JD having a kid with a blow in and then i dunno. i remember one really dumb episode based in a fantasy land like camelot or some nonsense. think i turned it off.

It ran too long and mainly because NBC are afraid to loose another big hit e.g. Friends, ER etc. But it is also down to the shows producers for just not saying no to another series.

Shmuck

Good post jazzy, agree with most of that. Turning Elliot into a ballbuster was possibly the worst thing they did. Also there seems to be a pattern with a lot of comedies in that they all seem to go steeply down hill when the main characters start getting married/having kids. e.g friends, frazier, only fools and horses, scrubs, men behaving badly.

themont85

How can people hate JD? Elliot has to be the most annoying character in the show. Okay the whole character development of JD has got very boring but some of the lines are class, Elliot is just plain annoying.

Every show goes like this in America. They always know where they want the character to be at the conclusion to the show but not when they will get there i.e they don't have a clue if the show will get one season or be re commisioned. So like in Friends where it was obvious the whole Ross Rachel thing would happen they had to piss about for years to get there. I don't mind it so much if there is good comedy thrown in, Scrubs for me has being good at it.

Jazzy

Shmuck wrote: »

Good post jazzy, agree with most of that. Turning Elliot into a ballbuster was possibly the worst thing they did. Also there seems to be a pattern with a lot of comedies in that they all seem to go steeply down hill when the main characters start getting married/having kids. e.g friends, frazier, only fools and horses, scrubs, men behaving badly.

and exactly why seinfeld is class ^^

even when george was engaged yer one died by licking envelopes. a brilliant and ridiculous death which made complete fun of shows over loaded with emotions

Passenger

Cant help but find the Todds continual routine funny whenever he's on screen.

kerry4sam

Passenger wrote: »

Cant help but find the Todds continual routine funny whenever he's on screen.

seriously? ah jeez i dunno ... I just wouldn't have missed him in the show after season 6 at all being honest ... his face matured so much that the lines he was saying just didn't match anymore, you'd imagine and hope he would know better

elshambo

Passenger wrote: »

seriously? ah jeez i dunno ... I just wouldn't have missed him in the show after season 6 at all being honest ... his face matured so much that the lines he was saying just didn't match anymore, you'd imagine and hope he would know better

Might have something to do with him being 42:eek:

Its one of the problems TV has with getting older types to play younger types, one day they show up for work and look like grandad Tod
eg One Tree Hill:D

veryangryman

Im detecting a lack of enthusiasm for this, but ill throw it out anyway...

Season 8 - when and where? Ive looked at wiki etc, but they said it would air in the Fall. The leaves have fallen but no sign of Scrubs

I do echo all of your opinions on where the shows gone though. The Elliot/JD thing should never have been revived. Is just not believable no more. Shame cos for a long time the show was more than just a brill comedy/drama - it had everything

La coup de grace

RobertFoster

Double episode on January 6th according to TV Rage. No idea when it'll make RTÉ/Paramount/E4.

Otis Driftwood

Am I the only one that finds the newer episodes funnier than the older ones?
Personally I thought it didnt really hit its stride until season 3.Granted season 5 was a bit hit and miss but I loved nearly every episode of season 6.Havnt seen a whole lot of season 7 yet.And as for comparing it to friends,gimme a break.Take the Ross+Rachael crap out of that show and you are left with about 6 episodes.

Scrubs is infinitly better than 99% of US sitcoms of the last 10-15 years,even at its weakest.

Basq

nedtheshed wrote: »

Scrubs is infinitly better than 99% of US sitcoms of the last 10-15 years,even at its weakest.

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement.

Scrubs is not as funny as it once was.. but it's still guaranteed a couple of great lines per episode (bar that horrible "Princess Bride-esque" episode that ended last season).