Zach Braff Reveals Why the ‘Scrubs’ Cast Stopped Laughing in the Exhausting Final Season
The sitcom fans of the healthcare community consistently cite Scrubs as TV’s most accurate portrayal of the average experience of young medical professionals — including the burnout, apparently.
When the two-part Scrubs Season Eight finale first aired on May 6, 2009, fans of the ABC sitcom were able to tearfully say goodbye to the cast and characters that had created so many memorable and impactful moments in a fittingly bittersweet send-off that brought the series to a well-received close. After spending so many years struggling with ABC over budget restraints, Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence and his team managed to tie up the series and its character arcs perfectly as J.D. said goodbye to Sacred Heart for good. Then, later that same month, ABC signed Lawrence and Scrubs up for one more 13-episode season, dragging both J.D. and actor Zach Braff back for one last hurrah at the same fake hospital where every other medical show ever was shot.
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The awkward, uneven and ultimately panned Season Nine of Scrubs is, inarguably, the least-favorite set of episodes among the online Scrubs fandom, and during a recent interview on the podcast Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum, Braff revealed that the season was just as unenjoyable to make as it was to watch.
“I miss laughing every day. Belly laughing every day was — that was the job,” Braff said of the chemistry on the set of Scrubs during the first eight seasons. “And when that goes away, by the time nine years were over, we were sort of all exhausted by it.” For Season Nine, ABC only secured full-season contracts with stars John C. McGinley and Donald Faison, who played Doctors Perry Cox and Christopher Turk respectively, with Braff and his other castmates only returning to Scrubs for certain episodes — Braff totaled six appearances in the 13-episode season.
Braff explained that, by Season Nine, he, Faison, Sarah Chalke, Judy Reyes and Christa Miller were all “kind of fried” from ABC’s grueling production schedule for Scrubs, admitting, “We were starting to repeat jokes. … We would do insane hours that people don’t even do anymore. We didn’t really have much of a life outside of it. So we were just kind of fried.”
Still, despite the draining final season of Scrubs leaving a bitter, medicinal taste in the mouths of the cast and the fans alike, Braff admits that he wouldn’t be opposed to yet-another triumphant return to his most cherished project. Said Braff, “But now looking back, and there’s talk of reboots, and that’s a conversation, I think, ‘Oh my gosh. Being able to laugh — belly laugh — with these people again, would be a lot of fun.’”
“When we signed up to do our show, they can put you under a pretty insane contract of, like, seven years and stuff, which was ... which I wouldn’t do (again)," Braff said of the original deal that led to his burn out. “But some sort of a limited thing? You’re basically saying, ‘Do you wanna go get the gang back together and fucking laugh your ass off with some of your best friends and be paid well?’ Yeah, that sounds amazing.”
Yeah, so did Scrubs ending with “My Finale.”
