Scrubs: The Complete Fifth Season

Posted by Danny Gallagher (danny@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 21, 2007

“Scrubs” achieves everything that every sitcom should strive to be: poignant, touching, unafraid of being silly, edgy and (most importantly but often forgotten) funny. This raises the obvious question: how the hell did a show like this manage to stay on one of the big four networks for five whole seasons without getting put down prematurely like a dog with a mouthful of Alka Seltzer?

Well, hold the hope train, Mr. Conductor. According to the Hollywood Reporter, NBC almost kept it from a seventh season and let it fall in ABC’s evil clutches where it’s Disney influence would certainly water its trademark humor down. Fortunately, NBC saved it in the zero hour only so the show’s creator Bill Lawrence could announce that it would be the last.

That it means if you’ve been following “Grey’s Anatomy’s” intentionally funny and un-gay cousin from day one, you’ve only got one more season to go. If you haven’t, you can catch up with the series through incessant reruns or the DVD box sets, which is now up to the fifth season, and even if you can’t afford all five, this one’s worth buying out of order.

This season’s major storyline starts focusing on Turk (Donald Faison) and Carla’s (Judy Reyes) struggle to make a baby (at first it’s Turk’s fault because he keeps slipping Carla birth control pills), follows J.D.’s (Zach Braff) up and down lovelife with an endless stream of girls played by celebrity hotties, Elliot’s (Sarah Chalke) life after Sacred Heart Hospital and ends all with a very surprising conclusion. The season’s cliffhanger was so out of the air that I’m hoping NBC’s public relations firm sends us a free copy of season six because I know I’ll be too cheap to find out what happens.

Since the fifth season had more of an established, steady audience, the show makes more room for more cartoony humor and outlandishness, which works in its favor. It’s refreshing to see a sitcom that’s not afraid to be silly or edgy or sacrifice the humor that makes it work for fear of losing touchy viewers or getting a large, angry memo from the network heads. Turning Sacred Heart into a horse hospital, JD trying to hide from the staff in a body bag and a trip to the Grandfather Kennel made me laugh like the Todd when he hears a nurse ask for a banana.

Of course, not every show is a home run, but you can find something redeeming in just about every episode. The characters have come a long way in five years. Everyone has grown in some way and even the seemingly concrete characters get to explore some emotional dimensions that don’t sacrifice what makes them work. In one episode, some patients unexpectedly die under surly Dr. Cox’s (John C. McGinley) care and this rock of a doctor who could probably kick House’s ass if he had his limp and House still had his cane ends up folding under the pressure.

Because the show takes place in a hospital, it wouldn’t work if it ignored the human and emotional side of this little world. Instead, it embraces what’s funny about working in a hospital from both sides, and it manages to get both right. An episode can still go from being painfully funny to emotionally painful within its standard span of 22 minutes without getting corny or sacrificing what makes it so damn funny.

There also seems to be an avalanche of movie and TV shows references this season, especially during the show’s 100th episode. That’s not a bad thing because it makes worth re-watching and some of the references are so minuscule that you find yourself watching them just so you can experience that moment of geek euphoria when you find them. Watch for the red stapler.

This show gets an A-minus from me. Why not an A-plus? The Todd spends too much time this season in banana hammocks. Seriously, my eyes are burning. This box set could have gone all the way if it came with a retina scraper.

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