Friday, January 12, 2007

Scrubs: The wrath of Dudemeister

Spoilers for "Scrubs" just as soon as I figure out why Ted has an evil twin who shops at The Gap...

Phew. The show's been in a slump since it came back after Thanksgiving, but between this episode and the musical (which I watched before I left for press tour), I feel like they haven't lost it just yet.

In particular, I laughed a long time at jokes involving two very, very different body types: the two sequences with J.D. and Shirtless Keith (well, one was Partly-Shirtless Keith), and Monstrous Jordan storming down the hallway to "Isn't She Lovely?" Keith's been a very good addition who I'd like to see more of (except, of course, that the show already has too many characters), and Christa Miller deserves some bravery points for her stuff. (Not so much for showing her pregnancy weight, but for the complete lack of grooming.)

Twice this season, they've taken an uber-heavy topic and turned it into a running gag, first abortion, now post-partum depression. I think this one worked better than J.D. and Kim's abortion debate, mainly because Turk recognized it quickly and spent the episode trying to fix it. (The lactation consultants, for instance, were played straight, which made it easier to go with the jokes in those scenes.) Also, Turk danced again, and I think I've long since established how I feel about that.

Not a perfect episode (Cox and The Janitor have had better shared moments), but still a big improvement.

What did everybody else think?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was good, but the show's absolutely nowhere near where it used to be. I long for the days when the pathos on the show felt genuine. I remember the fourth episode of the show, "My Old Lady" making me actually cry. I don't think the show in its current incarnation is even capable of that anymore.

K J Gillenwater said...

I thought it was a great episode! I've been watching a lot of the "Scrubs" reruns over the last couple of weeks, and this episode was right up there with the best of them. There were patients being treated (which has been lacking the last few episodes), there were several unrrelated storylines running (Janitor/Cox, J.D./Kim, J.D./Elliot, J.D./Keith, Carla/Turk, etc.), and there was a lot of the wacky J.D. daydreams.

I've actually been missing Keith, so I'm glad to see he's back in fine form. Elliot needs her boy-toy now that everyone else is in a relationship.

But I am so looking forward to next week's musical episode. I've watched the "Guy Love" video several times now and still can't help the laughter. Too, too funny.

Anonymous said...

I saw the science fiction writer joke go soaring over my head, and, as my brother continued laughing, I rewound and listened to it again.
I got it the second time.
The first time, I only knew that I should have.

Priceless!!

Pam

Anonymous said...

What science fiction writer joke?

Ted Frank said...

The reference to a "science-fiction writer" in the show was a joke about L. Ron Hubbard --> scientology --> Tom Cruise on post-partum depression.