It’s taken a few days to sink in, but I’m really going to miss Scrubs. If the ratings are any indication, the show hasn’t been popular at all for a very long time, and I’ll admit it probably lasted a season or two longer than it should have. Even at its worst, though, it was a great example of a show that perfectly blends real drama with the most off the wall sort of comedy.
These days every show and movie tries to shoe-horn drama into their comedy, and personally I’ve been Apatow-ed out for a while now. I don’t always want a happy moral at the end of my story. I’m not big on characters that spent the previous ninety minutes making fart jokes suddenly trying to tell me that all I need is love.
So why did Scrubs work for me? The drama never felt forced, and the characters always felt real. People think of drama and comedy as two separate genres, but the best entertainment understands that life is as silly as it is sad as it is sweet. Sometimes Scrubs got very silly, but the silliness was almost always confined to fantasies and flashbacks. Sure, the Janitor was insane (and who would have it any other way?) but even that crazy character had a shade of humanity that made it work.
The best shows, the best movies, the best art in general comes from a real place. If it’s ridiculous, if it’s depressing, if it’s horrifying, if it comes from reality it makes sense. Even my other favorite Bill Lawrence show (and possibly my favorite show ever behind The Simpsons) Clone High, understood that zaniness is better when you’ve got solid characters. Compare any random episode of Clone High to any random episode of Family Guy, and I challenge anyone to argue that the greater attention to character and plot on Clone High don’t help it come out ahead.
When a great show leaves, you miss the characters like you miss your friends. Scrubs was a great show, no question about it. Any doubters need only take a look at the last five minutes of the finale. Not since the last episode of The Wonder Years have I gotten quite as emotional at the end of a TV show.
This is why people get into the entertainment industry—in the off chance that maybe someday, something they create will mean something, will make other people smile, even if it’s just for a little while. So thanks Bill Lawrence and Scrubs for making me smile, and, more importantly, for always reminding me why I’m here in LA, where things can seem pointless all too easily. But if it’s possible to create something that can mean to someone else what Scrubs has meant to me, well, then it's worth every bit of the trouble.
UPDATE (5/15/09): So it looks like Scrubs will probably be back again next year. Quite a shame to end the show so well and then just drag its corpse around for who knows how much longer, but that's the way the industry works. "Always leave them wanting more" has been replaced with "Make them beg you to stop."
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