Scrubs- A review

Okay, may be you have had enough of medical shows. ER, House, and (Grrrrrr!!) Grey’s Anatomy, you name it, network TV is swamped with medical shows. Why would one more make any difference in our lives?

Because it is funny, that’s why!

So let us talk about Scrubs, the show that will make you laugh all over. It is a show about doctors and nurses in a wacky, surreal and slapstick environment. There are workplace comedies and then there are workplace comedies. Before the advent of The Office there was Scrubs and believe me, they can go head to head if you compare them. Not that you need to, they are both really entertaining. All I can say is, hilarious!

Scrubs centers around the character of Dr. John “J.D.” Dorian (played by Zach Braff).  He is a new intern at the Sacred Heart hospital along with his friend and roommate Chris Turk. JD is in internal medicine while Turk is in the surgical team- the latter being, in JD’s words, “The Jocks” while the former is the equivalent of the “Chess club”. JD and Turk have a very deep attachment, having been through college and Med school together. The third intern is Elliot Reid on whom JD has a not-so-secret crush. 

JD is your basic wimpy kid who grew up to be a doctor but still remains a wimpy kid at heart. He is easily intimidated but despite his diminutive manner, stands his ground for principle. He is always between a rock and a hard place- between the Chief of Medicine Dr. Bob Kelso and renegade Dr. Perry Cox.  However, JD is not unique in his position, in fact the entire hospital is torn between these two.

Kelso is the administrator, a heartless man who cares more about the patient’s ability to pay rather than their well being. He is very much at home with using his position to intimidate and bully the interns into conforming to the behavior of his liking: taking care of the bottom line. He is abusive, manipulative and sexist- conforming to all possible stereotypes of being the bad guy bureaucrat.

Dr. Cox on the other hand is devoted to his patients. His gruff and apparent indifference towards everyone belies a caring man who has dedicated his entire life for the welfare of the sick. He is very much the antithesis of Kelso but he is not beyond being manipulative. Using dead patients insurance, he would order tests on patients who did not have insurance. However much he may belittle the interns with verbal abuse, he is secretly proud of them. He is your basic macho good guy with a porcupine complex. JD views him with complete admiration and thinks of him as his mentor.

Turk and Elliot, like JD are new interns. Elliot is like JD, she cares about her patients but she is very bad with her bed side manners. She never fit in anywhere in her life so it is little surprise that she finds it difficult to fit into the hospital. She is always stressing about her lack of friends- although she has JD, Turk and Carla to fall back on. Her biggest problem is her foot in the mouth disease. She has the unusual knack of saying absolutely the wrong thing at the wrong place and at the wrong time.

Turk is dating Carla Espinosa, the head nurse. They have a very combustive relationship whereby Turk’s flamboyant personality is equally matched by her no-nonsense attitude. They have been a couple since the beginning of the show.

Then there’s the janitor, who is the bane of existence of JD. They have had an adversarial relationship since the pilot episode which spirals into enmity. The janitor enjoys taunting JD at his most vulnerable moments. JD, having tried to reconcile with the man several times, have given up and just takes his lickings from the man.

All in all the show is very entertaining and though the season has no particular story arc it does unfold in terms of character revelation. The humor lies in the everyday situations combined with the character contrasts and the development of relationships. It is a rather unique approach to comedy and judging by its success, it has fulfilled its aim.