Revamped 'Scrubs' deserves another chance

PASADENA, Calif. — After catching up on the last few episodes of the new version of "Scrubs," a somewhat surprising pictures emerged.

It's good. Very good. Darn good.

Who would've thought?

Not me, obviously. I was skeptical after the show ended its eighth season with what was supposed to be a series finale. And that episode was practically perfect in every way, so the series had nowhere to go but down.

The new "Scrubs" (Tuesday, 7 p.m., Ch. 4) isn't as good as the old one (yet), but it's still one of the funniest shows on TV.

It's just that the bar was set too high after eight seasons of hilarity. And the ratings haven't been good.

But creator/executive producer Bill Lawrence — who still consults on "Scrubs" while giving most of his attention to "Cougar Town" — has no regrets. Even though he joked that agreeing to bring the show back for a ninth season is "absolute proof that I sold my soul to the devil."

"The opportunity to take another shot with a bunch of new, young characters and see how it goes, man, I couldn't be more grateful for it," said Lawrence, who repeated that a big part of his decision to keep the show going was to keep its crew employed. "There's not a lot of gigs out there right now, and to keep everybody working has been fantastic.

"I'm proud of the work. It gets better every week."

And, as we near the end of the 13-episode ninth season — Tuesday's episode is the 11th — the new characters have definitely grown. And grown on me.

The incredibly insecure Lucy (Kerry Bishe); the incredibly arrogant Cole (Dave Franco); the devoid-of people-skills Denise (Eliza Coupe); and the back-for-a-second-chance Drew (Michael Mosley) have become well-rounded characters whose flaws make them lovable.

I'm in complete agreement with Lawrence, who would have preferred that the new version of the show have a different title. Although he acknowledged that it's "an understandable business decision," keeping the title makes the new version "a prisoner to the old show and immediately judged by it," Lawrence said. "So one of the things that's tough is after three episodes, you read something saying, 'Hey, we don't even know who these new characters are yet. They aren't well-rounded.'

"And in my head, I'm like — when, in any TV show, after an episode and a half, do you know who all seven characters are completely and how they're well-rounded?"

An excellent point.