Scrubs

Growing Old in Sacred Heart

You almost never get to go back home, especially on TV. When a network digs up a beloved sitcom, it usually ends up feeling vaguely embalmed. So when ABC announced a *Scrubs* revival—ignoring that awful ninth season and picking up sixteen years after the finale—I rolled my eyes. That show, which ruled the 2000s with its wild daydreams and sudden emotional gut punches, barely needed a follow-up. Or so I thought.



Bill Lawrence, the creator who’s back as an executive producer while Aseem Batra runs the writers’ room, actually knows how to handle middle age. *Scrubs* in 2026 doesn’t pretend the last twenty years vanished. J.D. (Zach Braff), Turk (Donald Faison), and Elliot (Sarah Chalke) are now the seasoned docs trying to steer through a completely different healthcare world. Braff is absorbing to watch. After years of directing indie films and drifting away from this manic territory, he slides back into J.D.’s posture with a crackling vulnerability. The grin is still there, but his eyes carry fatigue. He’s playing someone who finally sees that his optimistic youth didn’t cure the broken system.



The revival still leans on those trademark fantasy cutaways, yet they feel heavier now. Early on, we find J.D. deep into his concierge doctor phase, dishing out erection pills to the rich, envisioning himself as a crumbling superhero. It’s absurd, sure, but the camera stays just a beat too long on his drooped shoulders before snapping back to the clinic. That pause turns a silly gag into something quietly confessional. As Stuart Heritage of *The Guardian* observed, the new episodes somehow mix “deliberately silly comedy and volcanic fury.” That fury is aimed squarely at the modern medical machine, where people die for lack of affordable coverage and doctors either bend the rules or stand by helplessly.



The balance doesn’t land every time. The first few episodes of this nine-night arc wobble when introducing the new interns. They mostly read like sketches, leaving the emotional heft to the veterans. (Vanessa Bayer as the HR rep trying to keep Sacred Heart from spiraling is a welcome surprise.) But when the script pauses and lets Braff and Faison sit in silence, talking about arthritis and dying patients, it all falls into place. It reminds you that beneath the weird jokes, *Scrubs* has always been about how painful it is to care when you can’t save everyone. It hurts. And then, thank god, someone cracks a joke again.