TVSquad

Hello! Your friendly neighborhood Rich Keller here substituting for the wonderful and talented Chris Thilk to review this past Tuesday's episode of one of the best comedy's out there, Scrubs.

Let's face it, the three-camera, studio audience comedy is not doing very well. The wave of the foreseeable future is comedy shows like Scrubs, My Name is Earl, The Office, and Arrested Development. These comedies can do so much without the boundaries of a sound stage that a standard sitcom could not do without injecting canned laughter between the jokes. This is why you, the adoring public, seem to laugh out loud more at Scrubs then you would at, um, Joey.

Not only are the boundaries different, but they also do comedy in a different way. The writers and producers of shows like Scrubs aren't afraid to inject a bit of sweetness, a bit of seriousness into their comedies. True, both Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond were good at injecting those little serious parts in-between the laughs. However, it's hard to do this on a sitcom that is throwing one joke after another like, um, Joey (Gosh, I'm disappointed in that show).

Anyway, let me get off this soapbox and get the review out of the way.

The first half season of Scrubs was just full of pure wackiness.  As we round the corner towards the end of the season (and hopefully not the series; NBC would be stupid to let this go) the show seems to be moving back towards more normal topics.  Such as Tuesday night's episode, where Turk (Donald Faison) finds out that Carla (Judy Reyes) is pregnant before she does. Of course, a bit of wackiness ensues as J.D (Zach Braff) sets an elusive plan to keep her in the dark until the right time.

As this season has progressed we have seen some changes, which were apparent in this episode.  For instance, while J.D. is still the daydreaming everyman (The Adopt-a-Grandfather scene was very funny) he has a bit more maturity this season. I would even say that he is becoming a little bit Coxian (as in John C. McGinley's Dr. Perry Cox) with his reactions. There is one good scene where J.D. spurts out all of the lies Janitor has put forth in the last four years after he hears another one of his supposed lies. Janitor ( Neil Flynn) is also being fleshed out as a character this season. On a side note, there's a campaign underway to name Carla's new baby. Shouldn't we have another campaign to name Janitor?

Also changed is Dr. Cox's relationship with his former interns; they have become more and more colleagues with him and don't take as much of the crap he gives out. Case in point are Cox's scenes with Dr. Reid (Sarah Chalke) this week; Cox is upset at Reid but she really doesn't care. The biggest change is with Turk and Carla. With this season they have really become a couple and it shows as we see them together more than we see Turk and J.D. together. Although, in this episode, we do see more of the two best friends paired up than we have in the last episodes.

This was a well-rounded episode that ended very nicely. It was good to see all of the main and secondary characters together in the bar to hear Carla's baby news (which they all knew already). We even got to see a bit of Jordan, who doesn't come around enough. It's nice to see that, despite all of the bickering, they are really a family over at Sacred Heart.

Chris, thanks for the opportunity to review this show.