(S08E02) As I mentioned in the review for "My Jerks" and my season eight preview, if you want to see a perfect example of what Scrubs has done so well over the years, look no further than this episode. It's a deft mix of comedy and drama, with emotion mingling with character-based jokes that move the story along instead of interfering with it. It's the kind of episode that makes people like me believe that the show has something left and buy into Bill Lawrence's suggestion that the show is going to get back to basics and keep the silliness to a minimum.

A lot of people -- fans included -- wonder how Scrubs has managed to get to an eighth season. After all, things weren't breaking its way at the end of what was supposed to be its seventh and final season: the writers' strike truncated the season, its network (NBC) no longer wanted the show, and, though the writing quality had picked up by the time the seventh season was cut short, it had declined enough that even the show's most ardent fans were wondering if it was time to put the show out of its misery.

But thanks to the efforts of Bill Lawrence and ABC Studios, Scrubs does live on, this time on ABC. And, after viewing the first two episodes of the new season, I'm happy to say that going to an eighth season was worth it. Lawrence told me that he wanted to get back to the humor and storytelling basics of the early seasons, and the episodes I saw show evidence of that.