James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting article about the low-key exit of Scrubs from NBC after seven seasons, and the show's even lower-key deal with ABC for an eighth season. Even the least-plugged-in fans of the show know by now that the show is crossing networks, and according to Hibberd, eighth season episodes are currently being produced under very hush-hush conditions (which is true; even the show's PR rep won't tell us exactly what's going on).So... why all the secrecy, even though everyone seems to know what's what? It seems like there's a little cross-network courtesy going on. While ABC is waiting for its upfront presentation to officially announce that it's picked up the show, they're also waiting for the end of the show's run on NBC, which is either May 8 or 15, depending on your source (my guess is the 18th, considering only nine of the twelve produced episodes have aired). According to Hibberd, ABC is playing nice after ticking off NBC when the initial news about the show's move came out.
NBC, for its part, isn't going to make a big deal out of the show's exit; they're planning on promoting the season finale as just that. No fanfare, no calling it the "NBC finale" or anything like that; ads will say it's the "season finale" and nothing more. Nice of NBC to be honest for once; I'm tired of them saying "Stay tuned for more" of my favorite shows, only to just show the credits under a promo for some other show. And don't get me started on those ER promos...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
4-28-2008 @ 11:31AM
Zac said...
It's one of those things where I won't believe it until I hear it.
How wrong is it that I knew which episode that image is from? :)
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4-28-2008 @ 11:31AM
melissa said...
I'm cool as long as its on any network.. and I agree 100% with the "Stay tuned for more.." I always think I have another minute or two of Office sweetness, then.. nothing! Very misleading. As for ER, I'm ready for it to be done and over with...
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4-28-2008 @ 11:34AM
Jimmy said...
NBC appears to be taking the high road.
If I were at The Peacock, I would be marketing it as "Even our dead sitcoms are better than Carpoolers."
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4-28-2008 @ 12:41PM
Ann B Martin said...
Did any show ever make it after they switched one network to another?
I can name a list of them that last one season-
Hogan's Family
Golden Girls aka- Golden Place
Buffy..
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4-28-2008 @ 12:48PM
khamel said...
i dont think its an issue of 'making it' or not for scrubs. as far as i know it will be the final season so as long as it doesnt get canceled mid season its going to be good for scrubs and their fans.
4-28-2008 @ 12:49PM
Joel Keller said...
Ann, in this case it doesn't really matter, since this eighth season is just there to give Bill Lawrence the chance to wrap up the series like he wanted to do this year, before the writers' strike and NBC conspired to ruin those plans. I can't imagine the show having more than one season on ABC.
4-28-2008 @ 1:12PM
Wii60 said...
Not only do I doubt Bill Lawrence would continue for more than a season, but I seriously doubt Zach Braff would put his movie career on hold for a 9th season.
4-28-2008 @ 1:25PM
Cincinnati Mike said...
Taxi switched from ABC to NBC and, you guessed it, lasted a year.
4-29-2008 @ 4:43AM
Brent McKee said...
"JAG" had one season on NBC then switched to CBS for nine or ten more years. "My Three Sons" ran on ABC from 1960-1965, then on CBS from 1965-1972. I have a suspicion though that it is easier for a show that aired for one season to successfully change networks than it is for a show that aired for five years on a network to last after it switches ("Buffy" being one exception to that rule).
5-12-2008 @ 12:35PM
Moo said...
Ann, Buffy lasted for two seasons after moving to UPN.
4-28-2008 @ 1:55PM
Jake said...
Screw NBC. It's not like they've ever wanted the show in the first place. They used it as a stop gap after their miserable reality shows failed. Scrubs is one of the last good things left on NBC and I am glad it's going to a better network. 30 rock, Office, Chuck, SVU and Heroes are all that's left IMO. And even those shows are going to suffer when NBC orders 50 hours oh each show once Deal or No Deal gets old and ratings start to drop.
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4-28-2008 @ 4:14PM
Steve said...
Put this show out of its misery and cancel it already.
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4-28-2008 @ 4:39PM
shetaan819 said...
Just for the fact that NBC never gave it the HD treatment shows that for some reason they never took the show seriously.....hopefully ABC will at least give it the HD treatment as I believe all their primetime is in HD....
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4-30-2008 @ 10:08PM
Simon Wakefield said...
I doubt it will be HD even with the switch happens. In the UK atm there's some grumblings about Doctor Who not being shot in HD while Torchwood is.
Now the reason this is happening despite them having access to the equipment and the skills to shoot Doctor Who in HD is simply due to the fact that the shows a legacy show that started production before the BBC had a hd channel. The sets, the costumes, the props ect ect were from the off produced to a standard suitable for a SD shoot and to now shoot in HD would look awful and certainly nowhere near the level needed to be suitable for whats supposed to be a current show.
Sets need rebuilt and redressed to a higher quality, props need recreated to a higher quality, costumes need redone to a higher quality ect ect all of which is expensive and time consuming.
Now this is probably the exact reason scrubs never switched, infact alot of legacy shows didn't switch when HD started being the preferred choice as theres just no point in switching something at the cost required when its like Scrubs and is on shakey ground or in the case of something like Friends (Which wasnt HD despite Joey being HD 6 months later) is coming to the end of its run. You make the expensive shift only when a show is almost certainly going to have a pretty long run
5-01-2008 @ 6:17PM
Jake said...
Actually, Scrubs has never gone HD because of its production company (ahem, ABC), and not because of NBC. They didn't want to invest the money in HD equipment for the show--probably because it ran NBC, so they could be the reason that NBC was the last network to run an SD-only scripted primetime show.
I doubt we'll see a change of heart for the 8th season, since it will definitely be the last. But I could be wrong.
What's WEIRD is how the (mentally counts backward...) 5th season finale aired in HD. It was the only episode that did so. Gotta wonder why that happened. Maybe ABC first adopted this idea to shift the show from NBC to ABC way back then, so they wanted to tease fans ("It'll be HD next season-- and on ABC!"), only to have NBC come through in the off-season?
4-28-2008 @ 5:31PM
Ed U Kator said...
IIRC "JAG" was canceled after one season on NBC and was picked up by CBS to last another nine.
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