This week we were absent Dr. Kelso and Ted again. Instead, we got another intern-centric episode. I guess with the series finale forthcoming we needed to do another “his/her/their story,” and what better voice to spotlight then the interns. It allowed us to step outside our entire cast of characters and see them through the eyes of newbies, perhaps like new viewers who’ve found the show for the first time on ABC?
It’s interesting that these interns keep shifting around this season. Miss Kiss-Ass was virtually ignored, and now that Intern Who-Gives-A-Crap has moved on to Amy Poehler’s Parks & Recreation, we have Intern Smiles stepping up and Intern Speaks-His-Mind; I don’t even remember having ever seen this guy before this episode. We still had time to squeeze another fantasy out of J.D., but for the most part we were getting … their story.
The plots themselves were a little disappointing. Scrubs has always been pretty good at taking the gloss off of some of their medical situations. Patients die and don’t always get happy endings. As such, it was actually pretty difficult to watch Elliott and Who-Gives-A-Crap scar a girl needlessly just so Who-Gives-A-Crap could learn to stand up and take responsibility.
At the same time, they usually give us more of an emotional connect to those patients and their situations and we weren’t really given that here. Along the same line, Speaks-His-Mind seemed to exist solely to put up a mirror in front of the bad behavior of J.D., Turk and Cox.
Really the only plot that was a little entertaining was the most ridiculous one: Janitor getting revenge on Interns Smiles, Kiss-Ass and Glasses. And it was this storyline, as I guess we should expect, that generated the most laughs. Kiss-Ass proved a little naive as well when Glasses managed to get to first base (almost) in the elevator when he told her they might die.
I found myself once again enjoying some of these new characters; I even liked Who-Gives-A-Crap before he left. I just keep sitting on the fence on if it’s time for Scrubs to go away or not. Would a show focusing on the interns with some of the main cast members being reduced to recurring roles work? House seems to have pulled it off with only some continued grumbling.
Clacked by Jason Hughes 
on Mar 27, 2009 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
Why not. It’s been eight years – time for a restart with new interns. And the new ones are all really good except Smiles. She’s a little bit meh and I think there’s not enough boobage but that can be done with guest-stars. Jo’s kinda hot though :-)