‘Scrubs’ Creator Bill Lawrence Threatens That Reunion Movie Is ‘Inevitable’
Scrubs holds a special place in television history as one of the rare medical shows that somewhat reflected the realities of a hospital, but, somehow, creator Bill Lawrence is hellbent on bending the laws of nature by resuscitating something that’s been dead for 13 years.
The past couple of years have seen some improbable sitcom reboots and revivals that came long after we thought we stopped caring about That ‘70s Show or How I Met Your Mother, so it comes as no surprise that Scrubs would be the next on the list of 2000s comedies to drag itself back into the zeitgeist. The rumblings of a Scrubs reunion first began during a Variety panel where the show’s featured players all expressed their desire to return to Sacred Heart Hospital. Then, in a recent interview for his new show Shrinking, Lawrence said of a possible Scrubs film revival, “I think it’s inevitable that it happens,” explaining of the cast and crew’s passion for the project, “The joke of it with us is the first time that six months go by that we don’t hang out, we’ll end up doing a Scrubs reunion.”
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If distance really makes the (sacred) heart grow fonder, Lawrence must have been seeing far too much of his cast when he subjected them to the Season Nine scripts.
Lawrence explains that his close relationship with the Scrubs cast was a contributing factor to the affable charm the series had during its original run. “That’s part of the infectious vibe of some of our shows,” Lawrence posited, “That people end up sincerely enjoying each other and hanging out anyway.”
Despite the camaraderie of the cast, the last and supposedly final season of the show left a less-than lovable impression on longtime fans of the series. A year after Lawrence and the writers seemingly said their goodbyes at the end of Season Eight as our protagonist JD rode off into the sunset in the unambiguously titled episode “My Finale,” suddenly the entire gang was back together — plus some new faces, and minus the familiar setting. Scrubs protracted its excruciating farewell with a full season of an entirely new cast of aspiring doctors tacked onto the existing character dynamics and an entirely new hospital after the original Sacred Heart was demolished.
Season Nine would be Scrubs’ worst-received season, as fans of the show reacted lukewarmly-to-negatively to Lawrence’s attempts to un-rip the Band-Aid of the show’s ending by adding a bunch of characters that no one cared about, only to dash out the back door after 13 superfluous episodes. Now, 13 years later, Lawrence is finally looking to give the show the Old Yeller treatment with a feature-length movie that he will apparently only make once Zach Braff stops attending his dinner parties.
Even with Scrubs’ poor track record of adding new cast members at the end of the run, we’re hoping that the series will finally be blessed with some assistance from one special doctor — Dr. Kevorkian.
