There are a few series out there that were made in my lifetime that I think are just a cut above the rest. Sure, there are a lot of good series that have been made but I think that very few of them are so good that you can watch them a second, third, or even fourth time and still be entertained. I don't have any idea how many times I have seen the episodes of Scrubs but it has been quite a few, and I still laugh and love it like it was the first time through.
src
When they went to pitch this idea to the TV executives I would imagine that this was probably a pretty tough sell at first. The issues with the concept of the show are numerous and the main one I would imagine is that hospital dramas have been done so many times that the audiences out there are probably quite reluctant to take to it. Also, since this is a weekly sitcom with a ton of episodes per season they would need to maintain a vigorous filming schedule. There is also the fact that since the scenes take place in a hospital, a sound stage would not be able to be used for most of the scenes. There are also a huge amount of people in most of the scenes so a ton of extras would be necessary as well as a rather large crew.
Maybe this doesn't seem like that big of a deal but when we think about other sitcoms that I love such as *Friends" and Seinfeld these two options can be shot in the same building for the most part and in many instances there wouldn't be any need for extras at all. In *Friends" unless they go to the coffee shop there aren't really many other people in each scene anyway. They very rarely shoot anything outdoors on that show and when they do it is clearly a fake outdoors for the most part. The same is true of Seinfeld.
In Scrubs they are clearly filming on a very huge set and the fictional Sacred Heart Hospital is actually a real hospital building that had been decommissioned.
src
So before they even tried to see if this concept would even work they had to gain the rights to the real hospital property, completely renovate it, and then turn the building into something that is actually possible to film in. That must have been a rather huge ask involving a ton of money. Studios are known to be a bit frugal when it comes to picking up new shows, so this one must have been a very tough ask.
Another problem that they likely faced was the fact that nearly the entire cast, until later episodes that included cameos, consisted of rather unknown actors. Sure we all know their faces now, but at the time almost everyone in the cast other than "Dr. Cox" who was brilliantly acted by John C. McGinley was a who's who of who knows.
src
The show did end up getting picked up though and it was a strange situation in that ABC originally produced it, but it was actually aired initially by NBC and later in season 8 it was aired by ABC. I don't understand how this ended up happening but in the end it became one of the most successful sitcoms ever made and it continues to make a ton of money in syndication to this day.
There are a lot of things that I love about this show and one of main ones is that it is extremely watchable because the story jumps around a lot. This would be confusing in many other shows but the writers for Scrubs were extremely good and their use of internal dialogue and narration helps to keep things moving that would be very difficult if not impossible if they were to try to tell the story any other way. The use of "flashbacks" or just things that various characters imagine in their minds also tell a part of the story as well as keep things kind of slapstick humorous.
I also really enjoy the fact that there is zero use of a laugh track in this sitcom and honestly, that is something I really hate about almost all sitcoms. Even sitcoms that I really enjoy such as the aforementioned *Friends" and Seinfeld use laugh tracks and I cannot stand laugh tracks even in shows I really enjoy. I think this is something that has been almost completely phased out in modern sitcoms and for a lot of people, the use of one is really annoying and frowned upon. I feel like if you have to be TOLD when to laugh that perhaps we should look at whether or not the show in question is actually funny or not.
src
The show ended up being wildly popular and won a bunch of awards. It gained the level of fame necessary for their to be frequent cameos by A-list actors and actresses and these were used exceptionally well. The best example of this is in one of the episodes that I consider to be the best one that Scrubs ever did where Brenden Frasier plays Ben Sullivan, who is the brother of two minor cast members and great friends with Dr. Cox. The episode is extremely touching and even if you don't watch any other episode, you should seek that one out. It is the 14th episode in season 3 and it is entitled "My Screw Up."
This brings me to the next thing that I love about Scrubs. Not only is the show amusing and clever but it also tends to have a "life lesson" or some sort of emotional outcome in most episodes. It has the ability to make you laugh and cry in the same episode and many of the episodes will leave you thinking about the way that you live your own life and how you treat others around you. It is quite rare that a show is able to get you on so many different levels and Scrubs is one of the only shows I can think of that were able to pull this off. While I love Seinfeld, there aren't any emotional situations that made you feel like you might burst into tears because of it. Scrubs does this on a regular basis.
Scrubs aired for 9 seasons and the best seasons are likely the ones in the middle. The ones at the start they had to spend a bunch of time establishing characters and the show was still looking to find its legs. The later seasons seem like a tired concept and we even had cast changes that kind of upended the show. While they carried it on as long as they could it was evident by season 8 that the end was nigh and sure enough, it was cancelled after a rather abysmal 9th season where most of the old main cast has been swapped out, including J.D. not being in a majority of the entire series. I think the idea here was to make way for a new cast but it unsurprisingly was not well-received and people simply didn't take to the concept. It was cancelled shortly thereafter.
src
despite having some level of pre-existing fame, the audience simply didn't take to the new cast
If you have never seen Scrubs I am actually a little bit jealous of you because there are a ton of absolutely excellent and binge-worthy seasons in your future. Every episode aside from a couple of specials are only 22 minutes long and even though I have already seen them all, I normally will sit down and watch 3 or 4 in a row, sometimes more.
It's simply a perfect sitcom and sits near the top of my list, perhaps at the very top, of TV-comedies of all time. It was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards and probably won a few of them. It also won a Peabody award and while that is lessor-known by the public, it is generally considered a much higher honor than almost all other types of awards that exist for television.