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Scrubs: My ABC's
by Joel Keller, posted Jan 28th 2009 10:05AM
(S08E05) After four episodes that have ranged from the pretty-decent to the almost-classic, we start this week's double-shot of Scrubs with the season's first real clunker. Which is odd, because you'd think the presence of everyone's Sesame Street favorites in J.D.'s fantasies would have made for a funnier show. But I'm starting to wonder if it's becoming less funny because it's nothing we haven't seen from this show many times before.Don't get me wrong: the Muppets were cute: Oscar saying "My eyes never close!", Grover asking for a "high four," Elmo getting chummy with Denise/Jo, and the fourth one (name please, Sesame fans?) who's relieved to find out that all his problems stem from having a hand up his bum. But they really didn't help the plot like some of J.D.'s other more elaborate flights of fancy have.
What got me annoyed was the inconsistent characterization of Denise/Jo. It's already established that Jo's a hard-ass whose biggest effort to empathize with her patients is to say "sucks to be you." So why was J.D. so surprised to see her turn from a smiling fake to the crude broad she's always been? Methinks that this episode was written for earlier in the season and quickly adapted to run later (Elliot references the fact that she and J.D. have started dating again, for instance). It just wasn't adapted well enough.
The characterizations of the other two main interns -- Ed's a good student but is lazy, and Katie is a manipulative kiss-ass -- were more consistent. It was interesting that this episode really showed J.D. and Elliot come full-circle professionally. First of all, they let Cox's insults pretty much roll off their backs (heck, Elliot intercepts Cox's tired insult about J.D.'s beard just so it gets out there). Second, they have the same issues with interns that Cox had with them all those years ago. That'll probably be the most interesting aspect of this "final" season.
Fun stuff and notes:
- Missing cast member alert: all hands on deck, at least among the big six. No Sam Lloyd or Christa Miller, though.
- Most memorable non-Muppet line was Janitor telling Cox how to suck out Ed's Adam's apple with a plunger ("in theory," he says as Cox storms off with the plunger).
- Despite the inconsistent writing for Jo, it was interesting that her non-sympathetic take on the results of putting that patient on a respirator was what did the job -- and was completely accurate. I bet we'll see more of that in the coming episodes.
- Szwa! I have to tell you, Aziz Ansari isn't the world's best actor, but I'm enjoying the hell out of him as Ed. He's bringing a little life to a bit of a tired ensemble.
- Who wouldn't pick a guy who signed his name to a list using all three colors on one of those three-color pens?
- If you haven't seen it, go see the intern-centric webisodes that are playing at ABC.com. I've seen all of them, and they're pretty good. But so far, we've only seen Jo and Katie on these, along with two other interns we don't see on the main show. Wonder why they decided to do that?
Ok, on to the next episode...
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