The Anatomy of a “Scrubs” Revival: A Conversation with Showrunner Aseem Batra, Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Sarah Chalke

The squeak of Sacred Heart’s staff sneakers on hospital linoleum is back. Created by Bill Lawrence in 2001, the first nine seasons of Scrubs ran from 2001 – 2009. Now, it’s been revived at ABC for an unofficial Season 10. A few things have changed and a few things haven’t such as the slapstick chaos and internal monologues haven’t.

Where the original series was a coming-of-age story about finding one’s footing in the medical world, Scrubs 2026 is more about legacy and the new generation of interns. The story canon ends on Season 8 is where J.D. goes off to try and fulfill his dreams. Season 9 was a spinoff of sorts. Creator Bill Lawrence also used the original directors from the original series to recapture the tonal qualities for the revival.

J.D. (Zach Braff) has finally transitioned from a daydreaming intern with internal monlogues to the Chief of Medicine (also with internal monologues), and inherited Dr. Cox’s (John C. McGinley) office. Alongside him is Dr. Christopher Turk (Donald Faison), now the Chief of Surgery, still proving that their legendary “Eagle!” guy love bromance is still alive.

Dr. Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke) now balances a private practice with hospital politics, while a “retired” Dr. Cox often stops by to offer advice and to ensure J.D. hasn’t become too soft. He still issues his signature “Good job, newbie” quips. Nurse Carla Espinoza (Judy Reyes) remains the hospital’s true backbone as Head of Nursing, keeping the staff from derailing.

New personalities come from the new class of interns:

• Dr. Sam Tosh (Ava Bunn): A brilliant intern who struggles to separate her medical duties from her massive social media following.
• Dr. Asher Green (Jacob Dudman): An anxious, needle-phobic Brit who J.D. treats as a surrogate son — much to everyone’s annoyance.
• Dr. Blake Lewis (David Gridley):  A cynical “second-career” intern who provides the grounded perspective the hospital desperately needs.

Aseem Batra (showrunner/ writer/ executive producer), Zach Braff (director, star, executive producer), Donald Faison (star, executive producer) and Sarah Chalke (star, executive producer) share their thoughts on the revitalized Scrubs.

Zach Braff (John J.D. Dorian). Photo by Frank Micelotta

Zach: Scrubs still mixes that emotion, those moments with some big laughs. It’s been fun to be back in that world and that experience again.

When Bill Lawrence first pitched this, people said, you’re never going to be able to make those hairpin turns between comedy and drama. Many people passed on it and he eventually found a home for it.

With Aseem and her brilliant team of writers, directors and the cast, we’re all just trying to keep that magical energy of being able to navigate both comedy, drama and fantasy within a 21 minute show. It was an adjustment for us all to go back to.

Aseem: We only did 9 episodes, but we used to do 22 each season. There’s a little more work-life balance now. We wanted to revisit a lot of people in the limited space. We had to address J.D. and Elliot’s breakup, but we wanted them in a good place. We had to do that really quickly because we don’t want to see them bickering or not loving each other.

We wanted to see Donald again, being this mentor to these now female surgeons, because back then was it was all men. It maybe wasn’t Donald wheelhouse, but after having four daughters, he gets it.

Then we introduced a whole new cast alongside our legacy cast. We even got Rob Machio back to do a “Todd” cameo in his banana hammock. Everyone wants a Todd high five. Dr. Hooch (Phill Lewis) is crazier than ever.

Sarah: When Aseem, Zach and Bill told me that they were going to be divorced, I thought it was so smart. I wondered how are the writers going to find their way back into this show this many years later. I love their idea because there’s way more comedy and drama in them not being together and co-parenting, then working together, and both of them dating other people. There’s not really a lot of funny things in them just being fine. There was way more room to play. I know some fans are really upset about the divorce, but J.D. and Elliot always had a very tumultuous relationship. Some marriages work out; some don’t.

We’ll show the ultimate example of Turk and Carla (Judy Reyes), who are the cutest couple in the world, and then an example of a couple that didn’t really make it, but show them navigating how to work together and begin to date other people in each other’s spaces. I think that’s very relatable for a lot of people.

And at the same time, it’s nice to see the healthy growth in their relationship. We didn’t want to belabor J.D. and Elliot not getting along.  Of course there would be moments, but we wanted get that out of the way and have them getting along as co-workers.

When the show opens, everyone’s a little bit in a rut and they don’t quite have much direction. They’re not sure what the next stage of their life is going to be. In some ways it does take J.D. returning and Dr. Cox deciding to retire to shake things up.

Assem Batra (showrunner). Photo by Frank Micelotta

Aseem: This is the perfect re-entry point into the world of Scrubs. First they were in quarter life. They were asking, ‘What’s our life going to look like?’ And now we get to pick up in midlife where you get to see how it all turned out.

It’s a very interesting place to pick up because you ask, ‘Well, now what?’ Some of our dreams came true. Some of them didn’t. How do you start over at this age? How do you find what you loved about this dream job again?

It was a very rich time for us to restart the show and answer those questions.

Donald: Turk’s entry into this new Scrubs world was very difficult after experiencing burnout. I think everybody in this audience has experienced that in  some way. As you get older, life gets really hard. Turk is experiencing that in the beginning of the show, and to come back into this realm like that was something that I’ve never really had to do as an actor.

I’ve also grown as an actor. It took 25 years for me to get to where I’m at right now. I can relate to Turk now where he is finding new joy in mentoring this new generation of kids.

There is a surreal aspect to these interns. We used to be interns. Now, we’re showing them how to pull this off – how to do the turns between the drama and the comedy and the surreal fantasies. There is the passing down of what we know to them.

Sarah: That’s such a fun part about coming back and doing the same job 25 years later. All of us were the kids and now we’re the mentors. At the end of the day, all of our characters have become really good doctors who really care. They really want to teach these kids. And like Zach said, it’s been so fun to watch them go through exactly what we went through. No two days are ever boring because no two days are the same. One moment, you’re crying at a vending machine because you’ve lost a patient. Then, you’re in a burlesque dance costume because you’re doing a stripper scene. And then you’re having a real heart to heart with another character. And that’s just in a day.

You have to be willing to feel all the emotions. You’ve gotta be willing to be very high up in the happiness realm of things. And then, all of a sudden, you’ve got to drop really low. I think Scrubs is a great example of  how that exists in the hospital.

Aseem: It was important to strike the right tone for this season of Scrubs. There are some really fanciful moments and then some grounded moments. If we were going to correct in any direction, it would definitely be to ground it, so an audience who doesn’t know Scrubs could still find that it’s real and meaningful.

We did plenty of fantasy in this season. We had the big wrestling fantasy and we’re going to have more. This was trial by fire. We made each of these episodes in five days. We rehearse, we block it, and we film it as written. We improv a bunch of stuff and then move on.

We also  had to keep the real “guy love” affair between J.D. and Turk going. I gave Donald homework to make a list of the silly stuff that he and J.D. do.

by Staff Writer

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