Show 3.

Scrubs




Starring.. Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Judy Reyes, Sarah Chalke, John C. McGinley, Neil Flynn, Ken Jenkins...




First airing in 2001 on NBC, this series centring on the goings on at Sacred Heart Hospital. The first 8 seasons are shown through the eyes of John Dorian (J.D) (Braff). He is shown to grow up from an intern in Season 1 to medical professor in Season 9. His relationships with his colleagues become a major part of the show's storylines and funniest episodes. From his on/off romantic relationship with Elliot Reid (Chalke) (Ross and Rachel-esque) and his bromance with Chris Turk (Faison). The bromance especially forms a lot of the humour in the show. Turk's partner throughout a large portion of the show, Carla Espinosa (Reyes) is a nurse that at first is repulsed by him but later becomes his girlfriend, then fiance, then wife and finally mother to his children. J.D's reluctant mentor, Dr. Perry Cox (McGinley) is an acerbic Resident that J.D seems to relate to, for some strange reason, even though he is fond of calling him girls' names constantly. There are few occasions where he shows a positive view of Dorian's work and even validates him to a certain degree, even goes as far in 'My Fifteen Minutes' to praise him greatly in front of the hospital's board of directors. In season 8, Cox is given the job of Chief of Medicine which is open since Kelso's replacement, Dr Maddox (Courtney Cox) was forced out. Original Chief of Medicine, Bob Kelso (Jenkins) is seen as the show's villain. He nearly always chooses the hospital's budget or its overall wellbeing over the patients and their wellbeing. Throughout the seasons, his evil is shown to be a front so the decisions he has to make aren't so bad for everyone. The times he doesn't act like this are sparse and tend to shift the audience's perception of him to positive. When he retires from his post at Sacred Heart, he becomes much less hated by the other characters. He hangs around the hospital's coffee shop, eating muffins because of his 'free muffins for life' competition win in an earlier season. He and Dr. Cox even become friends because they both have been Chief of Medicine and he wants Kelso's guidance. The 'Janitor' played by Neil Flynn, from the pilot episode, has an adversarial relationship with Dorian. An incident involving a penny being stuck in a door created the relationship which endured throughout the series. His actual name has a certain mystery about it. In the season 8 finale, he tells J.D that his name is 'Glenn Matthews' but moments later he is acknowledged by a different name from another member of staff. It is unclear whether it is his actual name or not.
I like this programme because it is unlike any other I watch. The single camera setup in sitcoms is something that is much more popular since the show's inception in 2001 with shows such as: Cougar Town, Peep Show and The Mighty Boosh. Although Scrubs was one of the more famous shows that used the single camera setup, it has been used since the early part of the 60's with shows like The Brady Bunch. I like the fact that there is no laugh, I find that the inclusion of one in most shows often dilutes the hilarity of the supposedly funny moments. The show's humour is often described as 'zany' but that is rubbish it is just completely different to most of the things that are on TV right now. I'm for one very sad that it has been somewhat cheapened by the final season being nearly the opposite of the ones before it. The change of narrator and location has made it a shadow of its former self. I choose to forget about that and focus on the 8 glorious seasons before. The best thing about the whole show is Zach Braff. It is quite right that the creator's managed to get the late John Ritter to portray his dad because there is a great similarity between them in their acting styles. J.D is the protagonist of the whole show and he is also the one character that I feel I can easily relate to. It's not because he's the only young white male on the main cast, he just seems to 'speak to me'. Not really, he just makes me laugh and his internal monologue means I know how he feels and can see myself in him occasionally. Also Dr. Cox's elongation of words never fails to make me laugh. This show should never be taken of E4. I'm out.