Goodbye Scrubs – not quite!

by Jennifer Squires Biller

After last week’s spectacular Scrubs season finale that took us on a walk down memory lane, I was sure we’d seen the last of the Sacred Heart gang. It appears I was wrong.

ABC has renewed the show for another season, despite that series star Zach Braff will only be on board for six episodes. Scrubs’ favorites Donald Faison, John C. McGinley and Neil Flynn will all be back, but not Judy Reyes, who reportedly will only be a guest star. Sarah Chalke is also in discussions, but has not committed to another season. Several interns from season eight will be back, too.

I’ll probably get plenty of hate mail for saying this, but I wish the show had ended with the finale we just saw. It was such a perfect bookend to the eight seasons of John Dorian’s trials and tribulations that I hate to see the show limp on in mediocrity without the chemistry of the cast that made it so special.

The finale was every thing a series finale should be, complete with a heart-tugging musical montage. It even answered questions we’d asked for years: Will J.D. and Elliot get together? (Yes!) What is Janitor’s real name? (Glenn Matthews or perhaps Tony or Tommy, if he was just playing with J.D.) Does Dr. Cox really like J.D.? (Yes, well, more than he does Hugh Jackman that’s for sure.) We saw a hallway of faces from the past eight years who had touched J.D. in someway, starting with the beloved Laverne. And we learned in J.D.’s fantasy for the future that Turk’s daughter marries J.D.’s son, and that they all spend holidays together along with the Cox family. OK, so maybe that was just a fantasy, but it satisfied most of the diehard Scrubbies. It was fantastic finale, and I especially enjoyed the cameo of series creator Bill Lawrence tearing down the “Goodbye J.D.” sheet. Bravo!

I’m a big fan of Bill Lawrence, so perhaps I should trust that whatever he produces next year will be equally as entertaining as the Scrubs I’ve loved for eight years. But it’s hard to imagine the show without all the players that made it sparkle. If Lawrence goes in another direction from the original – the way Frasier departed from Cheers - then perhaps the show could work. Then again, it could also be another Joey. What I do know is that after seeing the current crop of sitcoms that rolled out this past season, Scrubs is still better than anything networks are producing. So, I understand why ABC is hesitant to let it go.

Despite that the show was renewed, I’ll say goodbye now to the sitcom I’ve loved. Thank you Scrubs’ cast, writers, and Bill Lawrence for giving me a place to go to laugh every week and for the excellent music featured on the show. (A good portion of the songs in my iTunes account came from Scrubs, and I’m off to get the Peter Gabriel song that played in the final episode.) Goodbye Scrubs. You will be missed.

If you missed the finale or just want to see the beautiful ending, grab some tissues and hit play below.

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