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By far, the funniest panel of ABC's first day at the press tour -- one that had Jimmy Kimmel question the network president and had Ashton Kutcher and his fellow producers bring up critics to play a miniature version of Opportunity Knocks -- was the one for Scrubs, which will air its eighth season on the network.

A panel with Zach Braff, Donald Faison, Sarah Chalke, and John C. McGinley couldn't help but be funny, right? But if you've ever read interviews from the show, you'd know that creator Bill Lawrence is usually the one who steals the show. This time around, though, he had an assist from Neil Flynn, who had a few good zingers thrown in for good measure. One of them came when someone asked him if he knows the name of his character, which for seven years has always been known as "The Janitor."

More after the jump, including an episode spoiler...

After Jimmy Kimmel left the room, ABC Entertainment Steve McPherson got on with the business of facing the press at his executive session. I kicked it off with a question about Scrubs, following up on what Bill Lawrence told me in May about a possible "next generation" ninth season.

"We do think there's an opportunity after (this eighth season)," said McPherson. "If any or all the cast is a part of that, I think there's a growth (opportunity) there. It's a show that, despite being moved around into like 17 time periods and really never being given the marketing support, has really performed unbelievably well on NBC." He went on to say that they hope "it won't be a one-season situation."

Other than that, most of the conversation revolved around the network's returning shows, which makes sense, since the network is only debuting a few new shows (none of which had pilots that the network thought were suitable for preview) this fall.

Aziz Ansari seems to be the hottest name around Hollywood casting circles. According to Variety, the stand-up comedian, who's also one-third of the MTV's acclaimed sketch team Human Giant, has been cast in the upcoming Office spin-off. He's also signed a one-year talent hold deal with Universal Media Studios.

What's interesting about this news is that Ansari was also tapped to play one of the new interns on the eighth season of Scrubs, which is produced by and will now air on ABC. What I'm guessing is that, since Scrubs will finish shooting in August, this deal will start after his deal with the veteran medical comedy ends. If there happens to be a ninth season of the show, as Bill Lawrence told me might happen, I'd imagine he'd come back after his Universal deal ends or they'll just replace him with someone else.

As I found out when I first spoke to Bill Lawrence last year, it doesn't take much to get the creator of Scrubs going. All it might take is a quick question and he'll go off on a monologue that is not only funny, but has a lot of good information as well.

That's what I got from him when I spoke to him earlier this week. Yes, we went over what happened with NBC after the writers' strike and how his show was able to make the shift to ABC. But, since he already spoke about that at length, we talked more about why NBC treated the show like it did, what creative shifts he's going to make to the show this year (expect to see less baby and relationship stuff this year, and more of the medical drama and comedy that got people hooked on the show). And, of course, he also dropped the mini-bombshell that I posted about earlier in the week, that there might be a ninth, "next generation" season of Scrubs.

I'll warn you right now, this is a long transcript, which is why we're splitting it into three parts. But it's got a lot of good information, and if you're patient, you'll find some interesting spoilers about what's going to happen next year on the show (production on eighth season should be wrapped up by August, according to Lawrence). So, buckle up and enjoy the ride...

I finally got a chance to speak with Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence yesterday, and, as you'd expect, he had plenty to say about departing NBC. In addition to the circumstances behind the show's move from NBC to ABC, Lawrence also talked about NBC's treatment of the show and why he thinks it stuck around for so long, despite that treatment.

But he also dropped a bit of a bomb: next season may not be the show's final season. And if there is ninth season of Scrubs, it likely will continue without him or Zach Braff on board.

More after the jump.

Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence recently did an interview with TV Guide's Michael Ausiello and took NBC to task for its shoddy treatment of the show. The network cut the comedy's final season short, but the show is getting a second chance on ABC. Lawrence slammed his former network bosses for denying him the opportunity to conclude the show properly, and discussed Scrubs' future on ABC. Here's a brief recap of the interview:

• Once the strike was over, Lawrence told NBC that he could finish up the season in three episodes instead of the planned seven. NBC had no interest in wrapping up the season in a way that would satisfy fans.

(S07E07) God, what a snoozer this episode was. And you can't really blame it on the writers being rusty after the strike; this is the first of the last five episodes made before the strike, which NBC held until it could pair it with new episodes of the rest of the Thursday lineup. In fact, as we found out, this is the first of the five final NBC episodes, as the show wasn't picked up by the Peacock. We'll likely see an eighth season on ABC, but nothing has been set yet.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the boringness of this episode. There were two decent laughs in this one: "brinner" and... you know what? I can't think of the other. There was some story advancement in this episode, but overall it was so unmemorable that I'm just going to pretend that next week's episode is the first Scrubs since the strike. Yeah, that'll work.

Bill Lawrence, creator of Scrubs, refused to write an "emergency" series finale to use in case of a strike. According to The Hollywood Reporter, ABC studios, which produces Scrubs, asked Lawrence to quickly write a series finale before the strike began. The studio apparently asked Lawrence to write a finale where "two people kiss" to cap off the series. But Lawrence stuck to his regular writing schedule for Scrubs, which means there is nothing written for a series finale.

(S07E01) One thing I can say about the season premiere of Scrubs' seventh and last season: It wasn't as lurchingly awkward as last year's season premiere. Or most of the first half of last season, for that matter. But that doesn't mean it was good.

There were a few laugh-out-loud moments, but most of the jokes fell pretty flat. And none of the flatness had anything to do with the conclusion of last year's cliffhanger, where J.D. and Elliot, trying to escape some big life changes, lie next to each other, and kinda sorta lean in for a kiss...

NBC has been running some strange promos lately for the upcoming season finale of Scrubs. The promos refer to this month's episodes as "the final episodes" and "just four episodes left". Variety is quoting NBC "insiders" who are saying the promos are intentionally vague because the future of the comedy series is still up in the air. Basically, if NBC doesn't find anything it considers "better", then it'll give Scrubs another season. Ouch. That hurts.

If it's the end for Scrubs, that's news to Zach Braff and the gang. Zach recently posted on his website that he hopes Scrubs gets at least one more year because A) this month's finale is a cliffhanger of sorts and B) he signed on to another year (for a lot of money, which is one reason why NBC isn't sure it wants another season).

It doesn't take much to get Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence going. I fully intended to speak to him only about his show's musical episode, which airs tomorrow at 9. But Bill managed to launch into monologues on current shows, the network testing system, Scrubs' weird history, and other topics. But he dropped a lot of interesting information, some of which I mentioned a couple of days ago.

For a guy who isn't quite 38 yet, Lawrence has had quite a successful career. He already has two long-running shows under his belt (he co-created Spin City in 1996), and has been involved in a number of other series. Included in his credits is the Internet phenomenon Nobody's Watching, which scored an NBC development deal after the pilot was "leaked" to YouTube.

After the jump is the freewheeling phone interview I conducted with Lawrence last week. Keep tuned to TV Squad for a Scrubs set visit video, which will be posted next month.

Before I left for Los Angeles, I got on the phone with Scrubs creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence to talk about this coming Thursday's musical episode. What I got was a pretty wide-ranging interview about Scrubs, his other project, Nobody's Watching, the evils of network "testing," his opinions on other shows, and a bunch of other stuff.

He's pretty sure that the show will come back for a seventh season. "It's becoming apparent that it'll be up to us if the show is on again this year, so we'll do one more year," he told me. "Again, the same as last year, I came into this year going 'Ah, it's the fucking last year of this show,' and now we're downstairs scrambling because our studio is like, 'This isn't the last year.' So now we have to re-outline all the stories and change it and all that shit."

Because Zach Braff has mentioned that this season might be his last, I asked Lawrence if a seventh season will include Braff. "I think I'd only do the show with Zach, personally," he said.

When are these guys going to get their own show? Yes, Taran Killam and Paul Campbell, the stars of the pilot-turned web sensation-turned television show Nobody's Watching have surfaced once again. This time around they appeared on Thursday night's airing of Scrubs, which was created by Bill Lawrence, who happened to produce the pilot-turned web sensation-turned television show Nobody's Watching.

However, if you blinked you may have missed them. So, we've provided a screenshot just to show you where they appeared. They are standing right behind J.D. and Kim in the scene right before those two wacky kids jumped into the supply closet to see if they were sexually compatible. Um, I'm talking about J.D. and Kim, not Taran and Paul. Although, that would be an interesting twist to Nobody's Watching.

[Thanks to reader Harry for the tip]

Despite the popularity of the Fletch movies (starring Chevy Chase as the sarcastic reporter), it has taken longer to get more of the movies made than it took to get another Superman movie made -- and presumably, Superman Returns required many more special effects. Director Kevin Smith (whose new movie Clerks II is in theaters and who was also associated with Superman at one point) had been talking about making a Fletch movie years ago. As in more than five years ago. He wrote on his View Askew message board back then that he wanted to cast Jason Lee (who now stars in the title row of the terrific show My Name is Earl) as Fletch.

It was always scheduled to come back in January, and by "always" I mean that's the spin that NBC execs gave the story, according to the show's creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence. The show can come back as early as next month, not midseason, and Lawrence thinks that the show's Emmy nominations might be the thing that gets it back on the air sooner rather than later.

[via TV Tattle]