My Doc Talk Scrubs Review 04.01.09: My New Moon

Posted by James Craig on 04.01.2009

The 2nd episode of the season without JD, can it deliver?

We're back this week with My New Moon after having some technical troubles last week. No worries, I'll get last week's review posted as soon as I can, but until then, let's get into tonight's episode. For the second time time this season we went a whole episode without JD making an appearance at all. The first time wasn't very good, at all, but tonight, I think that we made some real progress in moving the series towards either its' end or making way for a transition from the the Sacred Heart originals to this new batch of interns.

Tonight was heavy on the interns, but light in the originals, wit only Turk, Elliot and The Todd showing up. That being said, this episode while now a "Their..." style episode, it was still focused through how Turk and Elliot reminisced about their time as interns while at the same time putting the new interns through their own trials and tribulations in order to "scare" them as they worked through a full moon night shift. Each intern had to deal with a different patient, which is pretty much the whole of the episode, as each one had to overcome their obstacle in one way or another and in some cases dealing with the consequences. In the second story thread, Elliot had her own patient to deal with. Elliot's story this episode worked especially well in contrast to Turk's circumstance in the first JD'less episode, as this wasn't a case of doing as JD would do, but rather working through the situation on her own terms and making her own mistakes. Her biggest mistake being that when first presented with her patient, Elliot immediately came to the conclusion that the patient showing all the symptoms of anorexia. Elliot was reluctant to change her mind on her diagnosis, despite the objections of her patient as she was very confident in her ability to diagnose after having been a doctor for so long. It wasn't until she had to finally swallow her pride, that she was able to properly put together the pieces of the puzzle that the patient's symptoms were showing and she was able to finally come to the right answer. Unfortunately, the answer was that instead of anorexia, the patient was HIV positive. This was the point in the episode where we really got to see that while being a senior doctor, Elliot can still be shaken by some things that she has not had to deal with at all in her career.

As for the interns, their patients weren't "heavys" and were the sort of comic type situations that we've become so accustomed to in the series. Perhaps the most important thing to come out of their side of the episode is that they can hold the interest of the viewer without using the originals as a crutch, like we've seen in much of the season so far. Denise is still the strongest character out of all of the new interns, and I have to admit I'm a big fan. The rest are making leaps and bounds, and as a whole, this is a solid crew in which to build around if the show continues on past Bill Lawrence and Zach Braff's involement. (Even though Braff hinted on Ellen that he may not be done after all) A second interesting development was that Denise and the new surgical intern, (I apologize, I have completely blanked on his name), hook up after relentless taunting on the part of Denise, targeted at his arrogant personality.

Funniest Moment(s):

Turk's rant about Disneyland after finding out that JD went and took Sam, breaking their promise to each other about going when they turned 40.

Todd's laying down the law and "marking" his territory over the use of high 5's in the hospital.

The 411: This was a very good episode, and I feel that after having watched this, I have every confidence in the show being able to continue on in some form after the finale and still have a look an feel that long time fans will find familiar but will still be accessible as new viewers come on board. This is easily one of my favorite episodes of the season.

Final Score:  8.2   [ Very Good ]