If you are wondering how there could be a new season of Scrubs after the events from the finale of season 8, the answer is quite simple; a new group of kids join the dramedy. Bill Lawrence, the creator of the series, titles this season Scrubs: Med School and endeavors to mix the classical characters with brand new additions in order to craft an almost spinoff quality show.
Med School starts out with the passing of the torch, so to speak. Of course, John Dorian (J.D.) swoops in as the narrator telling about the basic premise of the new show. This includes how the group is at a brand new hospital, that’s right people the loveable Sacred Heart is gone, and how he is questioning teaching. Then as he passes a young girl, Lucy, the narration shifts to her inner voice. Within the first five minutes we have already found our new main character. This season is going to focus on Lucy’s experience in medical school. Lucy is the same unsure person as J.D. was on his first episode and throughout the season begins making friends and other relationships. One of the major subplots, and recurring themes is Lucy’s search for a mentor. She jumps around like a pachinko machine, from one doctor to another.
This time the mentor is not Dr. Cox. He has found a brand new student to take under his wing, Drew. Drew is so much like Dr. Cox that it is eerie, and Dr. Cox decides to mold this young mind into a halfway competent doctor. Later in the semester Drew joins Lucy’s group of friends, since in Lucy’s words “We can’t do it alone”. Throughout the entire season, Drew is the leader of the group and is the one that all of the students look towards for guidance. He ends up developing a relationship that would drive Freud to the mental institution, again, with Dr. Denise Mahoney. If you don’t remember her from season 8, she is a surly and bit butch doctor who gives Cox a run for his money in the jackass department. Then of course, to counter these scary characters, there is a ditzy airhead. Enter major twist. The airhead is a guy named Cole Aaronson and ends up being Lucy’s love interest. Let me warn you though, after the first few episodes I was rooting for someone to use some Dramamine on him.
Don’t worry, Scrubs: Med School is not just made up of brand new characters. In each episode there is at least four or five notable characters from the first eight seasons. Unfortunately, Carla and the Janitor(after the first epidode) are not among them. However, J.D. is present in about half of this seasons episodes. Also, Bill Lawrence made Dr. Turk and Dr. Cox major actors in this season. These two men were the head instructors, thereby providing pivotal points to the show. On a side note, these two men are the only characters to be in all 182 Scrubs episodes. Also, the characters make references to their missing comrades, ensuring that the storylines from seasons 1-8 do not die in the midst of the new dramas unfolding.
Bill Lawrence does a great job mixing classical Scubs characters and plots, with the brand new features for the new series. This season felt like an elongated pilot for a spinoff series. Honestly, the continuation was unusual for a television series. Season 9 still contained all of the “staples” of Scrubs. Each episode had a great mix of comedy and drama, but it was a little bit more focused on drama than previous seasons. Also, while the reoccurring gimmicks were there, aka the Eeeagle, they were not present in the same quantity as previous seasons. Sadly this was also true of the fantasy elements. Lucy still went into her subconscious a few times, but a lot of them were either cut or just missing. However, the level of narration was perfect. I never found myself wishing that she would just shut up, something that happened to me in the previous seasons.
Now that the show has been dissected, let’s take a scalpel to the DVD. The first thing that I noticed was the number of DVD’s; as in only two. I was so happy to not have to deal with four episode disks again. However, the only problem that I found with these disks is commonplace for series releases. This surrounds having to watch the opening and closing credits over and over. I just hit play and started watching the first eight episodes, and by the third one I was so tired of seeing them handing off the x-ray that I wanted to curse.
The DVD’s also contained a number of extra features. One of these major components was called “Scrubbing In”. This segment was basically included to describe the “New, slightly spinoff Scrubs” as Zack Braff states. In this segment, the new characters were introduced along with brief bios. Also, some of the cast and Bill Lawrence talk about some of the new plots and storylines. I would recommend watching this segment before the first episodes; it will really help with the understanding and progression of the story. The next feature was the deleted scenes. Usually, I look forward to the deleted scenes, but in this case, they should have stayed deleted. This is compounded by having Bill Lawrence talk about why each scene was cut, this section was pretty much a gloss over for me. However, the bonus bloopers were hilarious. I got a good chuckle from watching that. The final featurette was aptly named “Live From the Golf Cart”, and consisted of faux interviews being done by the security guard characters (who took over as the antagonist for the janitor). It was quite funny, but had nothing to do with any of the storyline or season. Pretty much, this bonus feature was just a tack on for a laugh, which it got.