The Office is being rebooted. Community is completing the #AndAMovie part of #SixSeasonsAndAMovie. 30 Rock lives on in useful out-of-context quotes. But what about another popular NBC sitcom to premiere in the 2000s?
Emmy-winning medical comedy Scrubs aired for nine seasons — seven on NBC, two on ABC — and 182 episodes, and launched the career of mixtape icon Zach Braff. It also taught the world that Neil Flynn, who played the Janitor, had a small role in The Fugitive. Is there a chance that, like the Michael Scott-free The Office and Frasier and too many other shows to list, Scrubs could return? Based on recent comments, it sure sounds like it!
Here’s everything we know about the proposed Scrubs reboot, including plot details and a release date.
Plot
To cut to the chase: creator Bill Lawrence wants Scrubs to return and thinks it’s only a matter of time before it happens.
“I’m really candid about it. We’re definitely going to do it, just because we’ve all been enjoying hanging out,” he recently told LADbible. “Look, there’s no huge drive because everybody’s successful, and I think the show was on for, like, 72 years, but on the other hand, medical people over here right now are very heroic to me. It’s been a tough road, and no one’s becoming a doctor right now to get rich here in America, and we’ve all been hanging out and talking.”
(I don’t know exactly what it says about America that a TV show might return from the dead because medical professionals in this country are not flocking to the profession, but I know it says something!)
Lawrence continued, “I’m open to it, and I don’t want to do it as a movie, but I’m definitely open to doing a couple more years of that show. It would not only be fun to see where the characters I used to love are now, but also to see what a young doctor nowadays looks like, as far as the kids coming in behind them.” He predicts they’ll “figure it out in the next six months or so,” although he is a busy man with Apple TV+ hit Shrinking and possibly more Ted Lasso.
If the reboot does actually get off the ground, Braff has some ideas for his character, J.D. “You know, J.D. is a grown-ass man now, and so Scrubs would still have his imagination. But I think he’s more in the Dr. Cox position these days. He’s the senior doctor to the hospital,” he told ScreenRant. “I think it would be interesting to find him yearning for some of the innocence of his youth, and finding ways to sort of get back to the character that everyone fell in love with. To me, that would be interesting, seeing him having lost some of his joy, and going in search for finding some of the joy of his youth.”
Cast
Scrubs can be split into two eras: the season 1-8 cast with Zach Braff (J.D.), Donald Faison (Turk), John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox), Sarah Chalke (Elliot), Judy Reyes as (Carla), Ken Jenkins as (Dr. Kelso), and Neil Flynn (The Janitor), and the season 9 cast which only featured the first three in starring roles. With all due respect to the med school students played by Eliza Coupe, Dave Franco, and Halt and Catch Fire legend Kerry Bishé, it’s reasonable to assume that the Scrubs reboot will largely ignore season 9, and bring back the original favorites. (Sadly, Sam Lloyd, who played scene-stealer Ted, died in 2020.)
Faison is interested. “It’s gonna happen,” he told NBC Insider in February. “I don’t know when, but within the next five years.” It helps that the cast appears to still be on good terms (especially Braff and Faison, who are basically playing J.D. and Turk in every other cell phone commercial these days).
Release Date
Even if they do indeed “figure it out in the next six months or so,” Scrubs 2.0 (3.0?) probably won’t premiere until 2026. Until then, NBC’s new hospital comedy, St. Denis Medical, looks pretty funny! It’s got a great cast with Wendi McLendon-Covey, David Alan Grier, and Allison Tolman.
Trailer
Let’s face the facts: there is no trailer, but there are nine seasons of Scrubs on Hulu and Disney Plus, including the musical episode.
