Scrubs: The Complete and Final Ninth Season - 2-Disc DVD

It's too bad that this show had to be called Scrubs, because it would have made a relatively good first season of a different show. And, as another reviewer has pointed out, the Scrubs holdovers were often the worst part of this last season.

Why was this show finally canceled? Let us count the ways:

1. In a move that apparently only the staff writers found funny, Zach Braff's J.D. became increasingly vane, stupid, and effeminate to the point of being totally ridiculous. This change began in season 5 when JD's silliness leaked out of his fantasies and into his normal behavior, when J.D. began truly acting selfishly with regard to his relationships with Elliot (especially) and Turk (occasionally). This annoyance persisted throughout seasons 6 and 7 as the fantasies got longer and dumber and the stories lost their humanity and realism. Though the writers sagely brought back the sweet and introspective J.D. for almost all of season 8, we find him back in his worst insecure, jealous, appletini drinking form here in season 9. He seems to exist only to appease those who tuned in to see Braff's mug.

2. After slowly softening Dr. Cox and Kelso up for the last 8 years, the writers had no antagonist against whom they could pit these new med students. In the first seasons, audiences rooted for JD, Elliot, and Turk to hold their own against Kelso, Cox, and Bonnie. In later seasons, the stories became more about unfolding those once menacing characters and watching JD, Elliot, and Turk grow up. With all of that out of the way, these new cast members are left without much of a challenge, as no one really finds Cox or Kelso all that scary. Even the patients, often demanding, uncooperative, or just hillarious in earlier seasons of Scrubs, are mostly just warm bodies this time around.

3. The choice to focus on Lucy as the new protagonist was an obvious but poor one. Lucy was written to appeal to audiences in the same way that J.D. had: she is unimpeachably nice, well-intended, and in over her head. Unfortunately, the scripts magnify Lucy's insecurity and weirdness to such a degree that she never feels like much of a real person. Her decisions (sleeping with Cole, for example) never seem to make much sense, nor is she terribly sympathetic. In short, it's hard to root for her because she seems hopeless, stupid, and hollow. Practically anyone, though especially Drew or Denise, would have made a better lead.

4. The writers clearly ran out of ideas by this season. Longtime fans of the show would watch familiar storylines play out in familiar ways. Echoing Elliot's interactions with Phillip, Denise would be forced to deal with Cole, the rich kid whose well-connected parents make his life easy. Echoing Elliot's naive belief in the power of a heroin addict to quit, Lucy invests her faith in a hopeless drunk. Echoing Elliot's stuggle with showing compassion to a young mother, Denise learns to show compassion to a young child. Over and over again, the same stories repeat with only slight deviation. Cole's entire character, for the first half of the season, appears to be little more than a less funny version of The Todd.

With all of this said, there are a few high points.

1. Cole's character does eventually show some humanity and, in doing so, becomes far funnier. His frequent run-ins with Drew and his inadequate attempts at being a boyfriend to Lucy are some of the few truly laughable one-liners in the season.

2. Drew, Dr. Cox's new protege, is absolutely the standout member of the cast. Not only is he incredibly believable as the kind of kid Cox would actually like, but his past as a med school burnout is truly novel.

3. Turk and Kelso remain true to form and are both hilarious.

Upon reading others' reviews of the product, I have also decided to write my own (somewhat biased) review.

This television show suffered from two main problems, the first of these is that it carried on the name "Scrubs." This is by far the worst decision ABC could have made regarding this show. In the same way Fraiser, Mork and Mindy, or countless other spin-offs created new titles for themselves while still keeping familiar characters this series needed to do the same. Do NOT buy this product if you are expecting the same brilliance that can be found in the first 8 seasons of this show. It is a different show all together, much as Bill Lawrence wrote on his blog about the show. People expecting the same characters and same relationships as before will find themselves sorely disappointed in the product, much as I am.

The second "unforgivable sin" which you will note that many other reviews (both previous and following this one) is the return of the characters and hospital name from the previous seasons. Bottom line is, JD is the heart and sole of all 8 seasons of Scrubs preceding this one. When you remove focus from his character, and the relationships he already established you lose the primary essence of this once great television show.
Adding to this, the relocation of the hospital and the retaining of some characters, though not many, is briefly glossed over in the first episode, in a way that says "the writers of the show couldn't think of anything", even an earthquake destroying the old building would have been preferable to the pass-and-glance attitude they give the new setting which, by the way, doesn't fit at all into the reality constructed by the show and completely ruins the suspension of disbelief. (I mean Dr. Cox as friends with JD and Turk? Fundamental conflict just POOF!)

The bottom line is that that old characters and show name needed to be completely removed from the show all-together. As much as I love Dr. Cox's rants, and JD's fantasy sequences, they didn't fit together coherently with the new cast. Oftentimes, what should be a transitional attempt seems like ABC bargaining with Zach Braff to be their TV show posterboy.

While I am sad to see the greatest show of the new millenium disappear from television, I must say I agree when people claim that Scrubs should have ended with Season 8 (in fact, it would've been nice if it had ended as originally planned with a full-lengthy season 7...stupid writer's strike.)

Bill Lawrence once again put out a television show with great potential, however, people should hesitate before deciding to purchase this item.

I think my biggest and really only problem is that they named this Scrubs season 9 and not season 1 of "The new Scrubs" or "Scrubs: Med School" This was not the original Scrubs, but would have been a good series in itself. With a fresh young cast and some of the leftovers from the original I thought this had a good balance of new and old. I think that bringing the old Scrubs fans into a new spin off show, instead of them hoping they would get another season of their beloved show would have been a much wiser decision, and it may have been renewed if that were the case. If you are a fan of Scrubs and go into this seeing it as a spin off you will most likely love it. If you go into watching it thinking it will be the same as the prior 8 seasons you will be severely disappointed.

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