TVSquad

Well, sort of.

Aloma Wright will return to the show this fall, even though her character, Nurse Roberts, was killed off earlier this season. It's part of a deal that she made with Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence: if the show returned for another season, then she could return to the show as Roberts' twin sister Shirley. She'll wear a wig.

Lawrence wasn't sure if there would be another season of the show when he planned her death, but now that they are returning after all he's going to stick to the deal. Which is a good thing. I really liked her character, and if the character can't come back at least the actress can.

(S06E13) If I had to sum up this week's episode of Scrubs in one word it would be 'jokey'. I know there was a common thread running through the show which was, in one word, 'trust', but it just didn't seem that it held a lot of substance. In the end it was just the glue attaching a constant barrage of jokes.

Now, before you point you finger at the flat screen and scream 'Of course they're jokes. It's a freaking comedy!' there have been plenty of episodes where the thread actually produced a nice story that wove around the show. A story where some of the humor would come from the situations rather than just from the jokes. Feh, what do I know? Maybe I'm looking too much into the episode. It just seemed to be more of a sitcom this week rather than a comedy. Am I off here, folks?

Anyway, despite all of what I said above, this was a pretty funny episode.

(S06E07) Let's see, over the past five seasons J.D. has given his special narrating powers to Turk, Elliot, Carla, and even Janitor. So, it was logical that he would pass on his abilities to one of the two remaining bigwigs of the show. And he did so this week, as the inner monologue was passed on to Bob Kelso.

Its been awhile since we've seen Bob strut his stuff on the show. Yes, he had some significant singing parts during the musical episode, but he's been in the shadows recently. He certainly isn't the powerhouse that he was in the earlier seasons. That was actually the plot of this week's episode: the staff are no longer afraid of Kelso's tirades since he barely shows up anymore.

(S06E06) Well, it's finally here! The musical episode of Scrubs, that is, with songs composed by Avenue Q's Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. A brief synopsis of the plot: a patient (Stephanie D'Abruzzo, an original cast member of Avenue Q) is admitted to Sacred Heart after a fainting spell. From that point on everyone around her is singing and dancing. There are also two additional subplots. One deals with Carla's indecision to return to nursing after being home with her baby, and the second deals with Elliot moving into her own house without J.D. as a roommie.

But, the stories don't matter. What matters here is if this musical experiment paid off. It most definitely did! I would certainly put this behind 'Once More, With Feeling' the musical episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and far ahead of the one that 7th Heaven aired a season or two ago. Gosh, I'd put the musical episode of The Love Boat ahead of the 7th Heaven episode.

I digress. After the jump I'll give you a recap and a review of the big numbers in this week's show.

(S06E04) Before we get to this week's review (and it's a good one) I just want to give everyone some advanced notice to mark January 18th on their calendar. Yes, that's my birthday (large denomination bills are fine as gifts), but that's not why I want you to mark it off. That will be the day that the Scrubs musical episode airs. From the preview clips I've seen it looks pretty good. So, make sure you set your DVR's (and primitive VCR's) for the occasion.

Oh, one more thing before we begin . . . I didn't know kittens could cause erectile dysfunction? Now it all makes sense!

All right. As mentioned by the lovely and talented Anna Johns this episode of Scrubs spoofed the slightly more serious medical drama House. Well, it wasn't a out-and-out spoof like, say, the movie Airplane was to all of those Airport movies. But, it definitely got a lot of reference on this week's show, especially during the last ten minutes or so.

(S06E03) I know I said last week's episode of Scrubs felt almost normal, but that was before I saw this week's episode. After a few weeks of baby-centric episodes we got back to the day-to-day antics of Sacred Heart. All in all, it was a good one. Not belly-laugh funny as last week, and certainly not as, um, bad, as the season premiere. There was just some solid storytelling, a few good laughs, and new character development.

What I liked most about this week's episode was that there was finally some decent interaction between J.D. and Turk. During the first two weeks there was barely any connection between the two, and this is a pair of friends who could compete in the man-love contest against Boston Legal's Denny Crane and Alan Shore. Yes, The season premiere was a focus on J.D. and his discovery that he would be a father, and last week was about Turk and Carla's new baby. During those episodes I missed the camaraderie that these two have shown over the last five seasons, and it was good to have it back this week.

(S06E02) Greatest. Show. Ever. -- The Todd

Much better episode! After last week's rough start Scrubs got back to normal. Where I had one or two chuckles last episode last week I got in some good belly laughs this time around.

This week's theme was parenthood. The main story was Carla going into labor and it was the funniest part of the episode. I mean, broadcasting live pictures of Carla's woo-hoo over the closed-circuit hospital television station was classic sitcom fare. And the comments coming from those watching the show were very amusing ("Oh look, Swamp Thing"). Plus, we also got to see Carla showing a bit more vulnerability than we normally see from her, and Turk nearly missing another important event in his life with Carla.

I usually bypass gossipy items like this, but this one caught my eye for two reasons: it involves one of my favorite actors on television, and because this story didn't give me the dry heaves. Scrubs star and former TV Squad interviewee John C. McGinley revealed to People magazine how he got engaged to his new fiancée, yoga instructor / birthing doula Nichole Kessler, on Aug. 19. Zap2It.com reports that McGinley told People about the engagement on the red carpet of the Creative Arts Emmys, which happened to be later that same day. The story itself sounds like it was very low key; he called Kessler down to their garden to ask her about some flower ideas, they sat down to look at the ocean, and he produced the ring. Very nice. Well, at least it's a whole hell of a lot better than putting the proposal up on the Jumbotron at a Yankee game.

Anyway, it sounds like the type of engagement story that most other couples have. Well, except for the Malibu estate. And the fact that they live in a bird sanctuary. And the huge ring. And the whole birthing doula thing. But other than that, they're just regular folks, right?

Interesting piece over at The New York Times about how the creators and producers were so exhausted by NBC's handling of the show (various time slots, on the shelf, off the shelf, etc) that this year they just decided to let it all hang out and kick the wackniess into high gear. Creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence:

"This year we decided to stop obsessing about how we can bring new people to the show...we decided that this year, we'd just do what we wanted and hoped we would at least be proud of it, even if it never saw the light of day."

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.