WELCOME BACK, CUTTER: The peak quality life of a good show, in all but a few cases, is a maximum of about six years. Somewhere around that point, the stories start to repeat themselves more frequently and every character combination has been exhausted. Even if the quality of the writing and acting hasn't suffered, a good show can get so familiar that it loses its ability to surprise you. It amazes me that people were able to watch The Simpsons, or ER, or Survivor, or LA Law, for their entire runs. I've given up on a tremendous amount of TV this season and last, not because the shows were necessarily bad, but because I had built up an immunity to them.
Although Scrubs debuted nine years ago, it aged in the strangest possible way. While it suffered from the familiarity and repetition problems that plague old shows, the way that NBC (and then ABC) constantly yanked it around and the maturing of its central conceit (newbie doctors aging into experienced veterans) also gave it a constant foal-finding-its-legs feel. It was both immature and decrepit, but still amusing and a little bit disarming.
Which kind of summarizes its return last night. It was jarring that the reboot -- a cast and setting change that seems a sensible, if incomplete, response to repetitiveness issues -- started with the same characters to whom the show had just said an emotional goodbye a few months ago. I understand why Bill Lawrence wants to give us a soft transition, but opening with ten solid minutes of Scrubs's Greatest Hits seemed very strange.
As for the new cast, who presumably will gradually push aside the old cast, I find them all very likable, and suitably promising. I particularly like that they didn't just try to replicate the same characters with whom they started the show. I have three issues with them, though: (1) what made this show (and its mopier analogue, Grey's Anatomy) work in the first place was the instant chemistry and camaraderie between the new interns. There was little interaction among the med students, and no positive interaction, so I hope the show really works on this. (2) I think they missed an opportunity to carry over some of the last class of reboot candidates -- Aziz Ansari is well used elsewhere, but it would be nice to have Sunny, the large Asian guy, and the dork with the Coke-bottle glasses (okay to lose the Elliot-alike) as recurring characters (and Keith Dudemeister -- the show needs Keith back). (3) Counting Denise/Jo, the new characters are three hot skinny blondes and two cocky pretty boys with Twilight hair. I was under the impression that some med schools now allow Asians, South Asians, Jews, and non-underwear-models to matriculate.
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