‘Scrubs’ Season 8/ABC Premiere: Was That Good for You?
January 7, 2009 by Chandra
As loyal Scrubs fans already know, last night the show made its eighth-season debut on its new home network ABC with the back-to-back episodes “My Jerks” and “My Last Words.”
On the first episode, the Sacred Heart gang meets new Chief of Medicine Dr. Taylor Maddox, played by competent Courteney Cox (sorry, all of you prepared to rag on her performance), who initially comes across as a sickeningly sunny and upbeat boss.
Never fear, though, because as the second episode makes clear, she has more than a few issues to help her fit in with the already quite quirky staff. A prime example is her tendency to care more about patients’ ability to pay up than the hospital’s ability to treat everyone who comes through the doors. Even The Janitor doesn’t phase her when he refuses to reveal his name (“The Janitor” reads his clip-on ID tag, ever so helpfully).
“My Jerks” also introduces us to Sacred Heart’s newest crop of extremely inept but memorable interns, including Aziz Ansari’s Ed, the one who has the power to instantly coin new phrases and convince everyone to follow along, and my personal favorite, Eliza Coupe’s super bitchy Denise, whose ultra negative, overly honest attitude and observations make it a teensy bit difficult for her to relate to patients … and most other human beings.
Denise to J.D. and Turk as they share heartwarming anecdotes with George Valentine, a dying patient played by A Different World and The Wire’s most excellent Glynn Turman: something along the lines of, “Great — now soon you’ll all start getting your periods at the same time.”
All in all, both episodes are pretty darn entertaining. For more about what happens, check out New Jersey Star-Ledger TV critic Alan Sepinwall’s spot-on assessment. Clearly, he pays much more attention to the show while watching than I do.
But, before you surf over, take a moment to share your own opinion about the episodes in the comments section below and/or in the polls.
NOTE: “My Jerks” and “My Last Words” repeat tonight on ABC at 8pm EST, so catch ‘em if you haven’t already.
