(S07E11) Well, that was a little confusing, wasn't it? Kelso is still in charge of the hospital, Keith is still around, and J.D. and Elliot are talking about their almost-kiss from the 6th season finale, something we thought they had gotten past awhile ago.It was pretty obvious that, once NBC told Bill Lawrence that he couldn't make any more new episodes after the strike was over, there was a mutual decision to make "My Princess" the season (and, as it turns out, the NBC) finale. Problem was, since it was episode 709 (look it up at the NBCU Media Village site), some continuity problems would rear their heads.
Oh, well. Continuity was just a small problem with this episode. I will say this: any episode Zach Braff directs is going to be ambitious, and this was about as ambitious as Scrubs has gotten. But for some reason, I was expecting more from this Princess Bride homage than I got. It was funny in spots, but it could have been a whole lot funnier.
Why wasn't this funnier? Not sure... maybe it was because, between the introductory scenes that set up the fantasy, the scenes of Cox telling Jack the story, and the real-life scenes from the hospital that illustrated what Cox's story was all about, there just wasn't enough room to do a proper parody. What the writers and Braff were trying to do was not only transfer the characters from Sacred Heart to the medieval village of Sacred Heartia, but also try to parody the Rob Reiner classic at the same time. In trying to do both, they really didn't do either.
Hmm... it could have just been because the fantasy came from Cox instead of from J.D. You know J.D.'s fantasies are... um... a bit more colorful. And in them, he's not an idiot. I will give the writers credit for not having Cox save the day in his own story; it was the Village Idiot (J.D.) and the Princess (Elliot) thwarting the monster / finding the diagnosis. He also acknowledged that they were both being idiots for determining their almost-kiss meant nothing. Seems like Percival's old softie side is coming out more and more these days.
So, what parts of the fantasy did I like? We needed more Giant (Janitor) and Toadie (Ted). I mean, who doesn't like hearing about Giant's taste for toddlers and Toadie's self-esteem issues? Tarla (Turk / Carla) were OK, but the CGI used to paste on both their heads was a bit distracting (as you can see on the left, the body belonged to Donald Faison). Maybe it's because the Turkeltons' two-headed relationship-expert shtick hasn't been seen in a couple of years, and it was weird to bring it back just for the purposes of setting up the Tarla character (and, by the way, Tarla has one ball because they're sharing a body, I guess; we didn't know about Turk's damaged cajone until later... maybe it was supposed to be a hint). We also needed to see more Lord Oslek (Kelso), just because I always want to see more of Ken Jenkins.
More fun stuff:
- Kelso sitting in his office pantless. By the way, even if it was out of order, it was nice to see Mean Bob back for a week. We haven't seen nearly enough of that over the last few weeks.
- Idiot / J.D.'s secret hair care ingredient: "More manure!"
- Poor Keith. Where did he go, anyway? It seemed like he just disappeared after Elliot dumped him.
- Aloma Wright pops up again as Nurse Shirley. Are we going to find out about her in season eight?
- Telling line at the end of the episode. When Jordan asks Cox if the patient got a liver: "That's the way I'm tellin' it." We should know that there aren't always happy endings at Sacred Heart.
- Everyone now freezes until The Todd gets confused and walks away. I'm surprised they didn't think of that earlier.
- "My name is Percival Cox. You hurt my friend. Prepare to die." A classic line, remade Scrubs-style.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-08-2008 @ 11:50PM
brandon said...
If scrubs wasn't coming back next season i would be so very upset that this was the finale.
easily one of the worst episodes ever.
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5-08-2008 @ 11:54PM
jerry said...
That was just not a very funny episode. The last few weeks have been good so its a shame that the season here. I love the princess bride and this was no princess bride. So sad.
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5-08-2008 @ 11:57PM
jerry said...
Ooops meant to write: The last few weeks have been good so its a shame that the season ended here.
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5-08-2008 @ 11:58PM
Blair Mitchelmore said...
This episode sucked. Hard. And I couldn't simply ignore the lack of continuity. Absolutely terrible.
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5-09-2008 @ 12:28AM
Ben Belden said...
I've never seen the Princess Bride and aside from Cox's one line which I have heard quoted before, I never would have guessed it was supposed to be an homage, a parody, whatever.
Anyway, this episode was so amazingly terrible that I would have turned off the TV just to make it stop except I was waiting for The Office after it. I didn't laugh, I didn't smile, I couldn't even tell what the jokes were supposed to be. Everyone was completely out of character even for a fantasy and the fact that it was so filmed with such a soft lens was making me sick. And then there was the whole continuity thing that others have pointed out which made it seem out even worse if at all possible. I can't even imagine them thinking the episode was even a bad idea when they made it and I'm tired of wasting my time trying to think of more ways to say how God awful it was.
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5-09-2008 @ 1:51PM
Rob said...
I'm sorry,.. but if I have to be the one to say it, then so be it,...
You have never seen "The Princess Bride!?!"
Ok,.. I'm done. It's out of my system now. Nothing left to see here.
5-09-2008 @ 1:05AM
kickit said...
I enjoyed the episode, but was confused at first and annoyed by the continuity issues. It's difficult to watch something when you know that it is not in the correct order. If it had been aired when it was supposed to be, then I think I would have liked it a lot more.
That being said... I wanted to comment on a couple things you mentioned Joel --
-Turk's one-ball reference. If this was in fact supposed to be episode 709, then I believe we DID know that Turk only had one ball now.. since we found that out in episode 708.
-I liked how Jordan asked Cox to tell her what really happened in the story... but it left a little plot hole because Cox was telling the story to his son about a "monster" that was killing a "maiden" ... but Jordan asked him if "the girl made it" and "got the liver." She wouldn't have known that the "monster" was Wilson's disease and that the girl needed a new liver.
-I think we WERE originally supposed to find out some story behind Nurse Shirley this season.. but I guess with the writer's strike, those episodes never got written (or at least not for season 7).
Anyway, I'm glad to know that we will have another season.. and I'm really looking forward to it. But I think they should have just kept this season in its correct order and used "My Waste of Time" as the finale. I always enjoy Scrubs, but the continuity issue tonight really put a damper on things.. kind of like when they aired an episode out of order last season.. it just gets annoying.
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5-09-2008 @ 1:16AM
Pierre-Luc Allie said...
Sarah Chalke as a princess. Wow!
I forget how lame the episode was by looking at her.
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5-09-2008 @ 12:13PM
Dan said...
Yeah man, I agree with you there...it wasn't a great episode, but looking at her in that corset made it all worthwhile.
Any time a show gets aired out of order, it's subject to the issues that this episode faced. Not only that, but the video quality seemed worse than normal on this one. I'm glad this isn't the finale, because it was just not the kind of Scrubs episode that made me fall in love with the series. "My Lunch" was the kind of episode that did...
5-09-2008 @ 1:53AM
corey said...
What the hell was that mess? Next season has a lot of making up to do.
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5-09-2008 @ 3:16AM
me said...
the epsiode was ok, but couldnt satisfy the raised expectations after i read zachs blogpost about the epsiode (http://www.zachbraff.com)...
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5-09-2008 @ 4:29AM
Rachael said...
Personally, I think everyone is being harsh. I enjoyed the episode, and though I was a little confused that Dr Kelso was still in it, I thought it was creative, and something different. I haven't seen the Princess Bride, so I can't judge it on the terms of being a parody. Still, I 100% enjoyed it. Zach Braff did a great job
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5-09-2008 @ 4:40AM
Alex K. said...
Clever, funny and sad. The ending was fabulous. Eventually this episode can be seen as a self-reflexive take on the series itself and its dreamy way of celebrating life, however cruel it might actually be.
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5-09-2008 @ 9:40AM
Dave said...
I am a huge fan of TPB and I didn't realize this episode was supposed to be an homage.
The continuity issues bothered me, but there were some funny moments. I doubt they have another full season worth of funny left in these stories. They need a quality finale and ride off into the sunset.
Favorite moment:
Cox to Eliot: "Princess..."
Cox to JD :"Princess..."
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5-09-2008 @ 12:05PM
jayr2345 said...
Honestly I think that they could have re- edited this episode to take out the Kelso part and filled it with something else, because Kelso didn't even have that big of a part in the real world or the fantasy world, and it would have cleared up the continuity issue. Knowing that this episode was just pretty much supposed to be a mid - season throw away episode really made it hard to accept as the season finale. I think the episode before this could have made a more acceptable season finale. It just felt kind of lazy on the shows part. It was kind of like, well we kicked out of NBC lets just show this episode and get the hell out of here.
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5-09-2008 @ 1:40PM
rudy said...
re-editing wouldn't have been possible. the remaining episodes of season 7 were completed before the strike. it was NBC that decided to mess everything up.
5-09-2008 @ 1:37PM
rudy said...
Blame NBC for airing the episode out of order... just one more instance where they have shown their disregard for Scrubs.
The episodes that have been completed for season 8 so far are much closer to the first two or three seasons of the show and are some of the best episodes in a long time. Look forward to it.
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5-09-2008 @ 4:02PM
Dan said...
Out of curiousity, how do you know about this? Are they available to see yet?
5-09-2008 @ 2:15PM
kevjohn said...
I couldn't even watch this mess. About midway through I just fast forwarded and hopped to The Office. I guess the humor of this show just wore a bit too thin for me over the years, so that when a particularly weak episode comes along it's best just to skip it. Too bad this particularly weak episode had to be its (NBC) finale.
I was going to have a comment similar to what Pierre-Luc Allie says above, but not even Dr. Elliot in a princess dress was enough to make me sit through this. Making Sarah Chalke look gorgeous in a pink dress is very easy. Putting together a script to make this show funny again apparently isn't.
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5-09-2008 @ 3:10PM
Kelly Seigler said...
What was the last line Dr. Cox said? We rewound and rewound and couldn't understand it.
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