15 years after Scrubs first went off the air, the show is back on ABC and bringing the laughs. According to series creator Bill Lawrence and showrunner Aseem Batra, now was the perfect time to revisit these characters.
Sitting down with DECIDER to chat about the revival of the beloved comedy series, the executive producers opened up about deciding to head back to Sacred Heart with J.D. (Zach Braff), Elliot (Sarah Chalke), and Turk (Donald Faison), and catch up with the doctors the world fell in love with all the way back in 2001.
To them, it was never about if, but when, as they just needed to find the right time and the right story, which Lawrence credits his fellow producer with.
“I always thought it would be cool to see the students creatively be the teachers and Aseem kind of pitched a really good version of that,” Lawrence told DECIDER, adding that it was organic for them to come back and work alongside each other again, given that the love between them is as real now as it was back in the day. “We all really like each other. The only reason it hasn’t happened earlier is that those people are so talented, they’ve been working constantly. It’s not like everybody’s like, ‘Oh my God, I need a job.'”
To that, Batra — who worked as a writer on the original series — said that she felt like they had the opportunity to do the original series justice and expand upon the stories, while also finding comedy in a new era of life for these doctors. Older doesn’t mean wiser, and just because they had an idea of how things might pan out, it does not mean plans went accordingly.
“I think it was sort of the perfect time, even if it just ended up this way, because when we started with them, they were in their quarter life trying to figure out like, ‘What’s my life going to look like? Am I going to get my dream job?’ And now they’re closer to midlife,” the showrunner and EP explained.
She added, “But they’re still looking for something. Not everything turned out the way they thought it would. And they’re looking for meaning. Even if it just worked out this way, it feels like it was meant to be right now, at least to me.”
That sentiment is made even more powerful considering that the revival starts by telling the audience that J.D. and Elliot are divorced, Dr. Cox is retiring and leaving Sacred Heart in J.D.’s hands, and Turk — who almost never encountered any major mental health struggles in the original run — is struggling with burnout after years as a surgeon.
Life has taken its toll on all of them, which leaves the writers in a perfect place to revive the bittersweet tone that the show nailed in its early run. A laugh and a gut punch were always delivered swiftly during the original show and that makes Batra and Lawrence excited to see where things go now that the trio is back under the same hospital roof.
Aside from all of the obvious narrative reasons, Lawrence also told DECIDER that at the end of the day, they would have been “crazy” to not get the gang back on a set together, especially with the limited amount of free time everyone has these days.
“We finally all had a window and thought it would be fun to get the band back together, and look, selfishly, if you get to work with your friends and you don’t take the opportunity, you’re a crazy person, right?” joked Lawrence. “Results don’t even matter at this point, because it was such a cool thing to be back with that community again.”
The first two episodes of Scrubs are now streaming on Hulu. New episodes air on ABC Wenesdays at 8 p.m. and stream the next day on Hulu.
If you’re new to Hulu, you can get started with a 30-day free trial on the streamer’s basic (with ads) plan. After the trial period, you’ll pay $10.99/month. If you want to upgrade to Hulu ad-free, it costs $18.99/month.
If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the Disney+ Bundles, all of which include Hulu. These bundles start at $12.99/month for ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu and goes up to $32.99/month for Disney+, Hulu, and Max, all ad-free.
