The Scrubs Revival Sounds A Lot Like The Pitt (And That's A Bad Idea)

So, we're getting a "Scrubs" revival. It's frustrating, because I'm a huge fan of Bill Lawrence's medical comedy that originally ran from 2001 to 2010 on NBC — and, for the last year of its existence in that form, ABC. Led by Zach Braff as Dr. John "J.D." Dorian, the show was funny, shockingly emotional, and surprisingly medically accurate (that last one is sort of anecdotal based on doctors I've chatted with, but still), and its main cast of characters — Donald Faison's cocksure surgeon (and J.D.'s bestie) Dr. Chris Turk, Judy Reyes' tough but big-hearted nurse Carla Espinosa, Sarah Chalke's neurotic but brilliant Dr. Elliot Reid, and the stubborn and often enraged doctor who serves as J.D.'s unwilling mentor, Dr. Perry Cox, played by John C. McGinley — are uniformly excellent. 

All of this sounds like it could add up to a promising reboot of the series, but I have my doubts, and it's because of Lawrence's recent comments on the forthcoming revival (for which Braff is already set to return). While speaking to TVLine, Lawrence addressed the challenges of taking Turk and J.D. into a new phase of their life. "The hardest part is that Zach and Donald have aged," he said. 

"People still have that affinity, and love, for that goofy youthfulness [...] But if I saw two guys in their late 40s/early 50s doing 'World's Most Giant Doctor,' and carrying each other around all the time, I would go, 'What the f***k is going on,' you know? To see what that [friendship] looks like at their age, and [take] a comedic look at what medicine has become since those kids started out as interns, and see how our people would look at it, deal with it, and try to remain optimistic."

Lawrence continued, saying the reboot will show the tougher side of medicine as it stands in 2025. As I write this, misinformation is everywhere, and the general public seems to mistrust medical professionals more and more frequently. "So, to look at how the system not only changed, but how it has beaten some of these people down, and how they retain their optimism with a new wave of young characters, has really been fun," Lawrence said. Wait, a series that looks at doctors beaten down by the system?! That sounds familiar! That's probably because that show exists now. It's called "The Pitt." I love it as much as I love "Scrubs," and we don't need another one!

Really quickly, let me try and break down all of the hullabaloo over the ninth and final season of "Scrubs." After the season 8 finale wrapped up most of the storylines for the main characters we already knew and loved, season 9, which was technically subtitled "Med School," introduced new characters played by future stars like Dave Franco, Eliza Coupe, and Michael Mosley. In that same TVLine interview, Bill Lawrence hit back at criticisms of that ninth season. "I hate the narrative, like, 'Oh, the ninth year sucked.' No, it didn't," Lawrence told the outlet. "It's sour grapes, whatever, I'm so lucky to have done it." After saying that if it had presented its subtitle a little more clearly or just been labeled a spinoff, it would have succeeded, Lawrence clarified something about the reboot: "This one is [also] called 'Scrubs,' and it starts with J.D. and Turk."

I hate to disagree with Lawrence. I really do. With that said, the ninth season stunk, and the reason it stunk is because all of the magic of the previous seasons left with the original characters! Medical shows feature a lot of turnover — ask literally anyone from "Grey's Anatomy" — and they're able to do so because real medical personnel change jobs and locations all the time, but "Scrubs" leaned heavily on its outstanding core cast to hit a perfect balance between serious emotional moments and ridiculous comedy beats. Even Zach Braff said he felt like the show wasn't making its same magic by the end. Speaking to Michael Rosenbaum for his podcast "Inside of You" in August 2024 (via Entertainment Weekly), Braff got honest about the final run of "Scrubs."

"I felt like, at the time, we were starting to repeat jokes," Braff admitted. "Everyone was pretty fried. This was back in the day [...] we would do insane hours that people don't even do anymore." In that same interview, he did say he'd be interested in a reboot, and the argument can absolutely be made that enough time has passed that burnout won't be an issue. There's an entirely different issue, though ... that neither Braff nor Lawrence seems to have considered.

Let's circle back to "The Pitt" for just a second. The series, created by three friends and "ER" veterans — star Noah Wyle, showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, and writer, executive producer, and director John Wells — was heavily inspired by the dire state of the medical field after it was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020, and to say that it's gritty and realistic is an understatement. Sure, it has moments of levity, like a gag in the season 1 finale where a bunch of emergency department doctors want to snap a cell phone picture of a girl with a fork stuck in her nose — but moments like that are far and few between in a series that prominently focuses on a tragic, accidental fentanyl overdose that leaves a college student brain-dead and a devastating mass shooting incident that injures hundreds of people.

I don't want "Scrubs" to go the way of "The Pitt." I don't want a show where J.D. and Turk have been ground down to a fine, mentally unstable paste and are grappling with what it means to provide medical care in a day and age where people are more and more skeptical of life-saving measures like vaccines, something that was literally a storyline on season 1 of "The Pitt." The whole thing about "Scrubs" is that, while it features some genuinely heart-wrenching cases and moments for its doctors, it's also a series that brought the "Avenue Q" gang on board to write a musical that prominently features a song called "Everything Comes Down to Poo." It's a show where J.D. frequently disappears into silly little daydreams on a whim so that we can laugh at a sight gag, and it's a show where Turk can take a dance break, Elliot can get so aggravated that her voice is too high-pitched to understand, and Dr. Cox can dig into the deep recesses of his considerable mind to call J.D. by a different girl's name. (Okay, maybe that won't fly in our modern era, but we'll see.) How could any of that stuff happen if J.D. is trying to tell an unwilling parent that, if they don't do a spinal tap on her unvaccinated son, he'll die of measles?!

The point is, I welcome a revival of "Scrubs." A lot of time has passed, that ninth season did kind of suck, and I'd love to see J.D. and Turk's progress on their vampire movie "Dr. Acula." I just don't want it to be like "The Pitt," because we already have that and it's great, and "Scrubs" should be its own, separate, wonderful, and weird thing. I hope I'm wrong, and you should also hope that the "Scrubs" reboot isn't just "The Pitt" with Zach Braff instead of Noah Wyle.

"Scrubs" is streaming on Hulu and Peacock now, and you can watch season 1 of "The Pitt" on HBO Max.