Archive for Zach Braff
COLE AND KELSO FIND SOLACE WITH ONE ANOTHER WHEN REAL FRIENDS ARE HARD TO COME BY, ON ABC’S “SCRUBS“
“Our Driving Issues” – When Cole and Kelso both get negative results back after a few routine tests, they learn the hard way to put their egos in check in order to rein in the support of their so-called friends, on “Scrubs,” WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 (8:00-8:30 p.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 Ken Jenkins as Dr. Kelso, Nicky Whelan as Maya, Matthew Cardarople as Frank, Jane Le as Ming and Matthew Moy as Trang.
The episode was written by Alessia Costantini and Prentice Penny and directed by Eren Celeboglu.
Watch “Our Driving Issues” Episode Online
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
Honestly, one wouldn’t expect Scrubs
creator Bill Lawrence to reveal plenty about the new season of his hit show. But from several of his interviews, we manage to unearth snippets and spoilers regarding this re-imagined ABC series we all know and love.
Since the show premiered this month, we’ve been expecting a lot because the season 8 finale really set the standard high. We didn’t think Scrubs [Med School] would live up to the original, but the fans are still giving it a chance. And with what Lawrence has divulged, we can see why.
We all know that Scrubs [Med School] doesn’t really feature Sacred Heart Hospital, and Bill Lawrence explains the move to Culver Studios. “We built a brand-new set, but the idea is that they ran out of money because of the economy, so there’s doors that go to nowhere and half-finished operating rooms and stuff.”
“The main set we built, besides the new hospital, is a huge auditorium lecture hall where John McGinley lectures the new students,” Lawrence announced on an interview with NJ.com. “And he starts out saying he thinks of them all as tiny assassins who wander around the hospital killing people. And it’s really funny.”
We’ve already met some of the new interns, from narrator Lucy (Kerry Bishe) to the egoistic Cole (Dave Franco). But one person who’s gotten some attention is Drew (Michael Mosley), being Dr. Cox’s #1 and Denise’s (Eliza Coupe) special someone. Lawrence told Spoiler TV that the couple won’t be the next J.D. and Elliot, but instead: “Think Turk and Carla,” he said.
Moreover, we all know how Turk (Donald Faison) and Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) heavily feature in Scrubs [Med School] as regular characters. Zach Braff’s in for six episodes, but what about the rest?
“Ken Jenkins, we ended up using him a lot, so he’s on the show pretty regularly,” Lawrence told TV Guide. “Sarah Chalke makes a lot more appearances than people are writing about. She’s in a bunch more episodes.”
Speaking of episodes, here’s the list for this season, with some spoilers about the plots for each. There’s a total of 13.
9.01 – “Our First Day of School”
Official Description: Set one year after the finale of Season 8; J.D., Turk, Cox, Kelso and intern Denise return to Sacred Heart to teach med school while new med students Lucy, Drew and Cole are put through the wringer on their first day of school
9.02 – “Our Drunk Friend”
Official Description: Lucy learns a hard lesson about what it takes to be a doctor. Meanwhile J.D. and Turk spot a potential love connection between Denise and the new med student Drew, as they play matchmakers with a little bit of help from Dr. Kelso
9.03 – “Our Role Models”
Official Description: J.D. and Drew learn a tough lesson in mentoring when Dr. Cox and Lucy show them that sometimes the student is the teacher
9.04 – “Our Histories”
Official Description: J.D. and Turk show up in costume at a med student’s party. Meanwhile, Kelso bids a fond farewell to Ted and Gooch.
9.05 – “Our Mysteries”
Official Description: 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.
- Sunny Dey (Sonal Shah), a medical resident from season 8, will be appearing on this episode as a guest star
9.06 – “Our New Girl-Bro”
Official Description: While Turk struggles to find a replacement best friend, Elliott offers some sound advice and guidance to an over-worked and exhausted Lucy.
9.07 – “Our Couples”
Official Description: Lucy finds couplings, dysfunctional or not, throughout the hospital.
- Spoiler TV reports a casting call for Trang, “an intelligent med student who is part of Lucy and Drew’s study group” and a possibly recurring character.
9.08 – “Our White Coats”
Official Description: Before receiving their white coats, the med students of Winston University must figure out why they want to be doctors, and Denise gets a little relationship help from Elliot.
9.09 – “Our Stuff Gets Real”
Official Description: The reality of having a baby begins to settle in for both J.D. and Elliot while Lucy struggles with the reality of operating on people.
- Spoiler TV reports that a casting call has been made for a “bickering Jewish couple” who are “both patients at the hospital and terminal.”
9.10 – “Our True Lies”
Official Description: A case of guilty conscience plagues the med school when a student cheats on an exam and Dr. Cox takes it out on the entire class. Meanwhile, Denise makes a startling admission of her own.
- With another casting call from Spoiler TV, we may get to see a 75-year-old version of Lucy in another daydream.
- There’s also going to be a character named Nicole, 25 years old and is “a stunningly beautiful lipstick lesbian who is in the hospital to be treated for complications from ulcerative colitis.”
9.11 – “Our Dear Leaders”
Official Description: Lucy takes her new assignment as hell week “team leader” a bit too seriously, and Dr. Turk feels threatened when an internationally renowned surgeon pays a visit.
- Spoiler TV reports a casting call for someone to play Lucy’s date – at least 5’10″ in height – in her high-school prom, to appear in a flashback.
9.12 – “Our Driving Issues”
- No episode description released
- Spoiler TV reports two casting calls. The first is for Frank, who is in his “early 20s, a skinny, creepy med student who is partnered up with Lucy.” Another is for Ming, a hot Vietnamese in her early 20s, who will be “an escort who accompanies Dr. Kelso to the hospital.”
9.13 – “Our Thanks”
- No episode description released
- Spoiler TV reports two casting calls. One for “a good-looking, cool med student” named Cole. Another for a character named Eric Coleman, “35, Caucasian. The son of Lucy’s cadaver, Ben. He resents his father and never had a good relationship with him. He has come to claim his body and bury him.”
Also watch any Scrubs episodes that you want 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.
DR. COX MAKES THE FATAL ERROR OF ASSIGNING LUCY AS HIS “HELL WEEK” LEADER, ON ABC’S “SCRUBS“
“Our Dear Leaders” — Lucy takes her new assignment as hell week “team leader” a bit too seriously, and Dr. Turk feels threatened when an internationally renowned surgeon pays a visit, on “Scrubs,” TUESDAY, JANUARY 12 (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 is Reno Wilson as Russell.
The episode was written by Corey Nickerson and Kevin Etten and directed by Peter Lauer.
Online Episodes: Watch Scrubs episodes that you may have missed here.
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
THE MED STUDENTS TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHY THEY WANT TO BE DOCTORS, ON ABC’S “SCRUBS“
“Our White Coats” Before receiving their white coats, the med students of Winston University must figure out why they want to be doctors, and Denise gets a little relationship help from Elliot, on “Scrubs,” FRIDAY, JANUARY 1 (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 Sarah Chalke as Elliot, Ken Jenkins as Dr. Kelso, Tony Tambi as Joseph and Windell D. Middlebrooks as Captain Duncook. Other guest cast TBD.
The episode was written by Andy Schwartz and directed by John Putch.
Also watch any Scrubs Episode that you might have missed.
ELLIOT OFFERS SOME GUIDANCE TO AN OVER-WORKED AND EXHAUSTED LUCY, ON ABC’S “SCRUBS”
“Our New Girl-Bro” — While Turk struggles to find a replacement best friend, Elliott offers some sound advice and guidance to an over-worked and exhausted Lucy, on “Scrubs,” TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29 (9:00-9:30 p.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 Sarah Chalke as Elliot, Ken Jenkins as Dr. Kelso, Robert Maschio as Todd, Windell D. Middlebrooks as Captain Duncook and Steven Cragg as Lt. Underhill. Other guest cast TBD.
The episode was written by Kevin Etten and directed by Michael McDonald.
