Notes From My Recliner 10.24.07: Scrubbing off Six Seasons?
Posted by Ben Moser on 10.24.2007
Scrubs is great, but I might change my mind about that in the first five minutes of this week's season premiere. You wanna know why?
For five of the last six seasons, Scrubs has been my favorite show on television. It seamlessly glides between absurd and silly comedy to fairly weighty medical drama on the backs of tremendous writing, direction, and acting(three things seriously lacking from TV nowadays on their own, much less in tandem). I have consistently been singing the praises of this show ever since I was turned onto it during its first season.
This Thursday, Scrubs launches the first episode of it's final season. They have five minutes. After that, I will be able to tell you whether or not the previous six seasons have been permanently ruined. I know that this seems like the kind of heinous overreaction that many have come to expect from internet-based fans of anything from sports teams to comic books. But my assertion that six seasons of near-perfect television can be ruined in five minutes of one episode is entirely rational if you'll allow me to explain.
Last season's cliffhanger saw an engaged Elliot and a J.D. with a pregnant girlfriend he'd just reconciled with lying in a bed, holding hands, and about 2 inches away from a kiss. If the writers haven't used their summer to find a way to keep this kiss from happening, all of the previous work they've done suddenly unravels.
Romantic tension is the nearly universal plot device for TV comedy. Sam and Diane, Ross and Rachel, Maddie and David...the tension between these characters was the defining characteristic of their shows. With Scrubs, we finally had a creative team that announced "this isn't going to be the driving creative force with our show."
So what do they do? J.D. and Elliot hook up, announce couplehood, and break up in the span of one episode. Then to drive home the point that they won't work as a couple, they become sex buddies in the second season with disastrous results. Finally, just to insure that the viewers understand that this coupling will never work, they bring them together romantically one last time in the third season only to blow it up in a fashion so spectacular that Michael Bay was jealous of the explosion. The point of it all, according to the commentaries in each of those seasons? The J.D. and Elliot saga will not be what defines this show.
Subsequent seasons have seen J.D. and Elliot develop as friends. Not friends who want to jump into bed one more time, but friends with a past that they have now worked past. If the last season is the build-up to "J.D. and Elliot make it work and live happily ever after," then what was the point of the journey we took completely sabotaging all of their romantic chances?
Of course, the internet isn't going to help. And the legacy of the show will end up being the J.D./Elliot relationship based on the internet response to one question:
If J.D. and Elliot are to couple up to finish the series, what was the point of slowly letting Keith grow on us? Let's face it kids, the fan reaction to Elliot cheating on Keith will not be nice. At least J.D. has the whole "Kim lied about having a miscarriage and talked me into breaking up with me" defense. Keith has been shown to take all of Elliot's neurotic crap and still bend over backwards to make her happy. The internet fan reaction when a female character exhibits any kind of perceived wrongdoing(to say nothing of a perceived sexual wrongdoing) is...let's say it together now..."slut."
The word "slut" will be thrown around on Scrubs fansites and message boards, feminist blogs will take issue with it, the original posters who tossed in the word "slut" will get defensive, and the issue will swell until all they'll remember about one of the funniest, most innovative shows that has ever seen air time will be the arguments about Elliot's promiscuity.
Now, there's always a chance that there is no kiss. There's always the chance that one or both characters realize what they're about to do. There's always a chance that they'll be interrupted. There's always a chance that the hookup that can destroy a series won't happen and the series can end with a group of young doctors finishing their medical "coming of age," if you will.
That growth is what this series is supposed to be about. And to focus once again on a tension you successfully defused several years ago would be doing a disservice everything that's come before. Such a disservice, in fact, that it just might be able to ruin the future enjoyment of a stack of Scrubs DVD's I own. And all it would take is five minutes.
