Archive for Sacred Heart
There’s been plenty of doubt regarding the return of Scrubs [Med School] for another season, and it looks like things are looking even bleaker for the ABC comedy. Lead actor Zach Braff has already quit roaming the halls of Sacred Heart, and now another main star could follow his footsteps.
Donald Faison, who has played Dr. Christopher Turk for years in the series, has reportedly been cast in a new CBS pilot known as The Odds. Since he’s going to be extremely occupied there, what could this mean for the fate of Bill Lawrence’s Scrubs?
According to a report by TV Guide, the 35-year-old actor has snagged the part of Tyler, a lead homicide detective on the upcoming police comedy. The Odds is set in Las Vegas, featuring outrageous cops and crimes that will keep us wondering. And laughing, of course.
The Odds was created by Joel Silver of Moonlight fame and Jeff Wadlow of The Tower of Babble. There’s no exact release date for that yet, but we’re still too busy worrying about our quirky hospital comedy to bother.
Apparently, Scrubs is still hanging there. We won’t know if it will get picked up for another season until May, but Faison’s involvement on The Odds won’t affect it all that much. Production has already concluded for this installment of the Bill Lawrence comedy anyway.
As with the introduction of the ninth season of Scrubs, fans still have mixed feelings about giving the show another shot. Recently, it seems like the series hasn’t obtained its former glory yet.
Worse, Donald Faison could finally be stepping out of the picture. Maybe even he knows that the show has run its course. We’re not sure how he’ll fare on The Odds though, but we do wish him luck.
Personally, I might be able to live with a Turk-less version of Scrubs. It could still be bearable at some point. But if they take out Perry Cox and Denise? No thanks; that really wouldn’t work.
So the new version of Scrubs
doesn’t seem to be going well with critics and long-time fans of the show. But would it help if they brought back one major force from the old cast of the show? Yep, we’re talking about Neil Flynn.
The Janitor has always been a remarkable presence on the eight beloved seasons of Scrubs. His exit from the show’s ninth season was already perfect in itself, but it wouldn’t hurt if we saw him once again, would it?
On an interview with Movieline, the 49-year-old actor who gained fame on Scrubs and The Middle discussed why exactly he left the ABC comedy and the hopes of coming back. We really would enjoy hearing about possibilities for his return, even though the Janitor may be a bit out of place in Winston University.
Neil Flynn was usually comfortable with his role on Scrubs, especially since he had plenty of input when it came to his lines. Most of his script was improvised, and series creator Bill Lawrence didn’t limit the actor’s own comic style.
“Knowing that the scene was open-ended and being on the show as long as we had, they knew that we’d be able to come up with something on the set,” he told the publication. “Especially scenes I had with Zach Braff. Very early on, we were comfortable altering the dialogue a little bit. Bill Lawrence, the creator, was all for it. He joked that if it was funnier, he’d get the credit.”
As for his departure from the show, Neil Flynn had this to say: “Well, they would have had everyone back if everyone was available. We aired a series finale so the show was done. No one was under contract or anything and so a few of us headed out and tried to get our next jobs.”
Moving on from Scrubs to The Middle wasn’t too hard for the actor, but he still recalls all the good times he had on the Sacred Heart set. That made it easy for him to agree on coming back for more.
“It just so happened that I got a different job so they asked me to do the first episode of Scrubs [this season] to explain why my character would no longer be there,” Flynn explained. “But they tell me that they’re keeping a spot open for me should I ever feel like coming back and I’d love to.”
Could the Janitor actually make another appearance on
Scrubs [Med School] and make things tough for Lucy? She may be not the J.D. we’re used to, but we’re thinking she needs a bit more advice from Dr. Jan Itor.
I knew the first Zach Braff-free episode of this new version of Scrubs was going to be a bit of a bumpy ride, but I didn’t think things would be this bad.
It’s not just that the episode was lacking in funny. The established characters were mostly written wrong, exhibiting characteristics we’ve never really seen before. And the med students — except for Drew — were so broadly written that they could have been played by anybody.
No wonder why this episode was buried on New Year’s Day.
First of all: Elliot. Was that the same person we left at Sacred Heart last year? Granted, she was a much more confident doctor and person at the end of season eight than she was at the beginning of the series. But I didn’t recognize this Elliot. She was almost cocky, a characteristic even season eight Elliot never had.
Could she have developed it after getting married to J.D. and getting pregnant? Maybe. But it felt like the writers had another doctor in the original draft and just decided to make the doctor into Elliot. Really, Lucy could have been marveling at any doctor who seemingly “had it all,” then called that doctor a “munch” when the doctor left her with her patient. The way it was written, we didn’t really see much of what made Elliot such a compelling character all these years. And, if all Bill Lawrence could afford was a couple of full episodes with Sarah Chakle, he and his crew pretty much wasted an opportunity.
On to Turk. Jeez, the guy’s got to sack up. He worked for an entire year without J.D. You’d think he’d be used to it. He never seemed to be the needy half of the couple, so having him essentially whine and pout throughout this entire episode was a little off-putting. We like Turk because he’s a cocky bastard, comfortable enough in his own skin to be able to dance to “Poison” and feel fine about it. Whiny Turk is not a fun Turk. Maybe palling around with Denise will give him back his mojo.
Oh, and Denise. Didn’t she kind of not like Turk? Or was she just disdainful of the whole weird thing he had with J.D.? Now all of a sudden she’s liking him? Seems convenient that Turk is turning to her to find people like the Korean Helen Hunt and steal birthday cake from too-chipper employees.
And why would Cox conspire with a med student, even if the med student was his designated #1, to get another med student to do all the scut work? Is that really something Cox would even bother with? Cole is barely worth his time, much less the effort to tell him about some fake ranking system.
Finally, Lucy. Dull as usual. Nothing about her character makes me want to follow her as she moves on in her medical career. And screw-ups like mixing the bachelorette photos for the class slides didn’t give me any more reason to sympathize with her.
Download “Our New Girl-Bro” Episode here
Watch a sneak peek of Scrubs Season 9 Episode 5 “Our Mysteries” which airs Tuesday, December 22 9:00-9:30p.m., ET on the ABC Television Network.
Synopsis: Scrubs Season 9 Episode 5 “Our Mysteries” – J.D. still clamors for Dr. Turk’s approval as he approaches his final day of teaching at Sacred Heart, Lucy searches within herself for the courage to perform a basic medical procedure on a real human, and Denise and Drew make things official, on “Scrubs,” TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22 (9:00-9:30p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network.
“Scrubs” stars Zach Braff as J.D., Donald Faison as Chris Turk, John C. McGinley as Dr. Perry Cox, Eliza Coupe as Denise, Kerry Bishe as Lucy, Michael Mosley as Drew and Dave Franco as Cole.
Guest starring are Sonal Shah as Sunny, Ken Jenkins as Dr. Kelso and Matthew Moy as Trang. Other guest cast TBD.
The episode was written by Steven Cragg & Brian Bradley and directed by Michael Spiller.
It was good to see an episode that had a bit more of a balance between the old and the new. Yes, we concentrated a lot on the J.D./Turk “Bro-a-Palooza” and Ted’s departure from Sacred Heart. But we also got a fair amount of the students working together.
Do Lucy and Cole still need a little bit more of a personality infusion? Sure. But it’s hard to keep up comedically with characters who have been developed over the last eight years. This episode gives me hope that eventually they’re going to be able to stand on their own.
As others have mentioned, we need to see more of Turk away from J.D. We know he can stand on his own as a character, but if he’s going to be one of the significant cast members after Zach Braff leaves in two episodes, we’re going to need to see how he reacts to Cox, the students, Denise, etc. We’ve barely seen him interact with any of them without J.D. around.
Because of the Bro-a-Palooza, there wasn’t one scene where Donald Faison was separate from Braff. And despite how funny the story was — Turk the black cowboy and J.D. the Indian in chaps doing Brazillian fight dancing was priceless — it did Donald Faison’s character a disservice.
I will say one thing, though: Cox making the two of them realize that they’re getting old was a nice breath of fresh air. “Stop wearing ironic t-shirts and just let it happen.” Yes, Bill Lawrence seems to be mining similar territory in Cougar Town, but that’s probably because he’s feeling his forties hit him upside the head. I’m only 38, and I can relate to all of it. But it’s a good reminder to Turk and especially J.D. that their characters need to move forward, not stay in the past.
Ted and Gooch are so friggin’ adorable together, aren’t they? It was nice to see Ted stand up to Kelso and demand more from him than a drunken, clammy good-bye, even if the clammy one was Ted. And it was good to see Kelso finally give him one. After all the abuse Kelso gave and Ted took, it was heartening to know that Bobbo appreciated the guy.
Sam Lloyd doesn’t get enough credit for creating a well-defined character like Ted in his short bursts of screen time, and it was good to see him get a proper send-off. Which of the state songs did you like the best? My choice is Wyoming.
Ok, med students: Nicky Whelan looks like she’s become the fourth new regular, as she’s actually getting major plot time, and a name – Maya. It’ll be fun to see the writers play off her Aussie accent and her way too hot to be a med student physique. Good to see that Cole got some more personality quirks (can’t touch bread) and a teeny tiny bit of heart (he came back to talk to the dying patient played by Paul Dooley). Lucy has a weird habit of pulling on the front of her scrub top; is that Kerry Bishé’s quirk or one she gave the high-strung Lucy? And we didn’t see a lot of Drew, but we saw enough to know he used to eat from dumpsters and is still sleeping with Denise.
Download Our Histories Episode here
