Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season (a J!-ENT DVD Review)

September 21, 2010 by Dennis Amith 

“Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” may not be a great season, nor will it be a season that many diehard “Scrubs” fans will accept.  True… Season 8 was the true final season for fans of the series but if you gave season 9 a chance and enjoyed it, then this DVD set may be worth checking out.

Images courtesy of © ABC Studios. All Rights Reserved.

TITLE: Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season

DURATION: 390 minutes (13 episodes)

DVD INFORMATION: NTSC, Region 1, Widescreen (1:33:1), NTSC, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Spanish and French subtitles

RATED: TV PG DLS

COMPANY: abc studios

RELEASE DATE: September 28, 2010

Created by Bill Lawrence

Directed by Michael Spiller, Chris Koch, John Putch, Michael McDonald, Rick Blue, Peter Lauer

Written by Bill Lawrence, Sean Russell, Corey Nickerson, Kevin Etten, Prentice Penny

Starring:

Zach Braff as Dr. John ‘J.D.’ Dorian

Sarah Chalke as Dr. Elliot Reid

Donald Faison as Dr. Christopher Turk

John C. McGinley as Dr. Perry Cox

Eliza Coupe as Dr. Denise Mahoney

Neil Flynn as The Janitor

Ken Jenkins as Dr. Bob Kelso

Robert Maschio as Dr. Todd Quinlan

Christa Miller as Jordan Sullivan

Kerry Bishe as Lucy Bennett

Michael Mosley as Drew Suffin

Dave Franco as Cole Aaronson

Nickey Whelan as Maya

Matthew Moy as Trang

Windell Middlebrooks as Captain Duncook

Allowing millions of fans to complete their collections of one of the most outrageous comedies on TV — on September 28, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (WDSHE) releases ABC‟s Scrubs: The Complete Ninth and Final Season — the home entertainment debut of the exciting final season of the fan-favorite series. Scrubs: The Complete Ninth and Final Season features every final season episode of one of ABC‟s most beloved comedies, complete and uninterrupted, along with never-before-seen bonus materials that fans will love, including bloopers, hilarious deleted scenes and much more.

“Scrubs”, the popular medical comedy series was saved by ABC when the NBC canceled the series and was given a chance to properly end the series with a final eight season. The series ended and for the most part, it was a fitting conclusion to the series… but the eighth season would not be its last.  A ninth season was greenlighted and similar to last season which focused on Dr. John “J.D. Dorian and his fellow doctors helping out the new residents, “Scrubs” season nine would continue with J.D. (who signed on for a few episodes), Dr. Elliot Reed, Dr. Christopher Turk, Dr. Perry Cox and Dr. Denise Mahoney are training a new group of residents.  And now all 13-episodes will be coming to DVD via “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season”.

The longtime comedy series was created by Bill Lawrence (“Spin City”, “Clone High” and “Cougar Town”) and is a medical comedy series which takes place at Sacred Heart Hospital and focuses on the life of Dr. John J.D. Dorian (Zach Braff, “Garden State”, “The Last Kiss”). J.D. has an imaginative mind, thus you often see things through his perspective and what he is saying to himself internally. He works with his off-and-on again girlfriend Dr. Elliot Reed (Sarah Chalke, “Clone High”, “Roseanne” and “Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy”) who has a similar sense of humor as him, his best friend Dr. Christopher Turk (Donald Faison, “The Boondocks”, “Robot Chicken”) and Turk’s wife Nurse Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes, “Third Watch”, “The Passion”). And at the workplace, J.D. must put up with Dr. Perry Cox (played by John C. McGinley, “Any Given Sunday”, “Stealing Harvard”, “Office Space”) who seems to not like him and the unusual janitor (Neil Flynn, “The Middle”, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”).

With the ninth season of “Scrubs”, there’s a new group of residents at the hospital which include the unsure about herself and bubble-headed Lucy Bennett (played by Kerry Bishe); the second time med student and Dr. Cox’s #1 student Drew Suffin (played by Michael Mosley, “Kidnapped”); the arrogant, perverted, mouthy and son of the man who built the hospital, Cole Aaronson (played by Dave Franco, “Charlie St. Cloud, “Greek”, “Privileged”); and the Australian student that no one can understand, Maya (played by Nicky Whelan, “Neighbors”, “Halloween II”).

For “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season”, 13 episodes are featured on two discs. Here is a listing of the episodes on each disc (note: the following are spoiler-less summaries):

DISC 1:

• EPISODE 170 – Our First Day of School – J.D. shows up to help teach the new interns.  We are introduced to the new residents and J.D. hopes he can find a student that he can bond with.
• EPISODE 171 – Our Drunk Friend - J.D. is jealous that Dr. Cox picked Drew as his #1 and hanging around Turk.  Meanwhile, Lucy goes to J.D. for advice.
• EPISODE 172 – Our Role Models – Dr. Mahoney must explain to a mother that she is dying and finds it difficult.  Meanwhile, J.D.’s jealousy heightens over Drew.
• EPISODE 173 – Our Histories – Everyone wants to party but Dr. Mahoney is making the residents interview four terminal patients before they can party.
• EPISODE 174 – Our Mysteries – J.D.’s teaching is over and he awaits the teacher’s evaluations from the students.
• EPISODE 175 – Our New Girl-Bro – Turk misses J.D. and Elliot tries to help by being Turk’s new “bro”.  Meanwhile, Lucy is angry towards Dr. Elliot Reid.
• EPISODE 176 – Our White Coats – Drew is expected to give a speech for the residents but doesn’t want to and Cole tries to reveal part of Drew’s past.

DISC 2:

• EPISODE 177 – Our Couples – Drew kicks Cole out of the study group, meanwhile Lucy wants to spruce things up between her relationship with Cole.
• EPISODE 178 – Our Stuff Gets Real – J.D. feels he’s not getting any alone time with Elliot, meanwhile Lucy is afraid to cut up her cadaver.
• EPISODE 179 – Our True Lies – Dr. Cox wants to know which one of the students cheated on the test.
• EPISODE 180 – Our Dear Leaders – Dr. Cox is holding “Hell Week” for the med students and wants Drew to separate from the others.  Meanwhile, Dr. Turk is jealous when a famous doctor/contributor to the hospital takes his parking spot.
• EPISODE 181 – Our Driving Issues - One of the students is diagnosed with cancer and Dr. Mahoney thinks her boyfriend Drew listens to Dr. Cox over her.
• EPISODE 182 – Our Thanks – Cole wants to practice surgery and learn under Turk (which Turk doesn’t want to happen), meanwhile Lucy wants to pay respects to the cadaver her and her fellow students have been working on.

VIDEO:

“Scrubs” is presented with an aspect ratio of 1:33:1. Compared to last year’s release, somehow “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” looks as if there is a lot of chroma noise.  Sometimes, it seems a bit excessive and at first I thought it was more present during indoor scenes but you can see it even in the outdoor sequences.   Also, at times, it seems that the colors are oversaturated with color tones going towards reddish/orange at times and even some banding issues. Also, there are some artifacts, backgrounds look a bit hazy and details are OK but after watching so many of the recent ABC TV offerings, the picture quality of “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” was not the best.

AUDIO & SUBTITLES:

Audio for “Scrubs” is in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. For the most part, the series is a dialogue-driven series. So, most of the audio is front and center channel driven. I personally found it much more appealing by having the series set at stereo on all channels on my receiver but for the most part, dialogue is clear and understandable.

Subtitles are in English SDH, French and Spanish.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

“Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” comes with the following special features:

DISC 2:

• Scrubbing In – (6:04) The cast talk about the new set and new stage and discussion with series creator Bill Lawrence, a few of the original cast members and the new cast members of “Scrubs”.
  
• Deleted Scenes – A total of 19 deleted scenes with optional commentary by series creator Bill Lawrence who explains why the scenes were deleted.
  
• Bloopers – (1:49) Featuring outtakes from “Scrubs” ninth season.
  
• Live From the Golf Cart – (2:08) Featuring security guards Captain Duncook and Lt. Frank Underhill along with Dr. Todd Quinlan.
  

EXTRAS:

“Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” comes with a slip over cover case.

I absolutely loved “Scrubs” and it came at a time when many serious medical-based dramas were starting to have ludicrous plots, so to see a comedy revolve around a hospital and to see how the characters interacted with each other in the crazies situations, especially to see some adult comedy mixed into the series, “Scrubs” was one of the highlights of prime time television.

After the final episode of “Scrubs” season eight, I felt it was the most appropriate ending for the series.  The final episode focused on the main characters that made “Scrubs” so entertaining to watch and it was a fitting goodbye.

And then we find out that “Scrubs” has been renewed, despite Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke were pretty much done with the show and sure enough, Braff and Chalke were committed for a few more episodes and help their fellow talents Donald Faison and John C. McGinley complete this final ninth season and pass the torch to the next generation of “Scrubs” characters.

So, here we are with “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” (or as most die hard fans prefer to calling it “Scrubs Medical School – Season 1″) and ABC cancels the series at 13-episodes without any conclusion.  Can the network at least have given the writers one episode to conclude everything appropriately, especially for these new characters?  What a weak way to end the series and unfortunately, with the ratings down for the series, unfortunately ABC didn’t feel it necessary to give Bill Lawrence and the writers a chance to end the series appropriately with a series finale.  So, the ninth season does seem a bit incomplete.

But these things happen quite frequently on television and in “Scrubs” case, at least we had a wonderful final run for the eighth season.  If anything, “Season 9″ was like a 13-episode bonus.  While the newer characters did end up growing with me (yes, even the character “Cole”, a character I really disliked at first), I felt that Sarah Chalke’s Dr. Elliot Reid seemed out of place with Dr. Denise Mahoney.  Although I felt the bromance between J.D. and Turk was overdone, I did like seeing writers utilizing Dr. Cox and Turk with the newer characters.  But pacing was really off with this series.  For example, once we say goodbye to J.D. after his semester of teaching ended, three episodes later, he’s back in a storyline that revolves around him and Elliott.  It seemed so out of place and it was a last ditch effort for writers hoping that J.D. and Elliot’s appearance would bring older viewers back.  And interesting enough, they both never show up again afterward.

But I’m not going to hate on season 9 because I was entertained. Maybe not in the same level as the original series but I was entertained nonetheless.

As for the DVD release, last year’s “Scrubs” was the ultimate release.  Tons of special features and I suppose ABC felt that with the series expected to finish with its eighth season, they went all out.  Not the case with “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” on DVD.  Not one commentary is found on this DVD.  We do get introductions and explanations for the deleted scenes by Bill Lawrence but other than the “Scrubbing In”, “Bloopers” and “Live from the Golf Cart, but that’s about it.  And the picture quality of “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season”, it pains me to even say it…but the PQ for the episodes on DVD was not that good.

Overall, “Scrubs – The Complete and Final Ninth Season” may not be a great season, nor will it be a season that many diehard “Scrubs” fans will accept.  True… Season 8 was the true final season for fans of the series but if you gave “Scrubs” season 9 a chance and enjoyed it, then this DVD set may be worth checking out.   But otherwise, it’s probably the weakest “Scrubs” season on DVD that lacks an appropriate series finale, unlike last season, has a small amount of special features and features mediocre picture quality.