From March 25th on Disney+, the nine episodes (two at the debut, then one per week every Wednesday) of the new season of Scrubs, the decades-awaited revival of the legendary medical dramedy created by Bill Lawrence and which ran from 2001 to 2009-10 for 8+1 seasons, will also be released in Italy.

The return to the screen of the characters who made the Sacred Heart of Sandifrangeles one of the most beloved hospitals in the world was, as is known, on the wish list of millions of fans, and now that we are here it can be difficult to hold back the emotion when the legendary theme song starts with its “I can’t do this all on my own, no I know, I’m no Superman”; yet, this revival has already divided critics between those who appreciated the new direction of Scrubs and those who, instead, judged it to be an operation out of time.

In order not to risk being disappointed, here are the things to know about what can be called Scrubs 9, given that the much-maligned Med School has been officially defined by Lawrence, Braff and Faison as a spin-off species from an alternative dimension not to be taken into account in the characters’ stories.

What is it about and who is in Scrubs 9 1/2, the return

The plot of the new season therefore picks up from the finale of season 8: the Sacred Heart was not demolished (but in reality the building that housed the disused clinic where the old seasons were filmed was razed to the ground to build an apartment building), JD (Zach Braff) left to pursue a career after fulfilling his dream of love with Elliot (Sarah Chalke) and everyone lived happily ever after. More or less.

In all these years, in fact, things have changed for many. Not for Turk (Donald Faison) and Carla (Judy Reyes), always and forever together, with four daughters who plot against their poor father, who became head of surgery in the hospital where he began his career as a resident and where he met the love of his life, who returned after maternity leave to her position as head nurse.

JD has instead become a “concierge” doctor: in practice, to spend more time “with his children” (in the plural, so in addition to Sam Perry Gilligan Dorian, whom he accidentally had with Kim in season 5, he had at least one other child with Elliot), Doctor Dorian visits rich patients at home.

One day one of his patients is admitted to Sacred Heart, and so JD returns to the place of many memories. Where Elliot, Turk, Carla, Hooch (Phill Lewis), Todd (Robert Maschio) still work… and also Him, the legendary Doctor Cox (John C. McGinley), teacher and icon of our protagonist, predictably not very comfortable in an era in which not only female nicknames for men, but almost every phrase he addresses to interns is subject to denunciation or at least reprimands from human resources.

JD therefore has the opportunity to meet up with old friends and meet the new recruits, the new rival Doctor Kevin Park (Joel Kim Booster, who we love for his Nicholas in Loot), the heirs of Laverne, Ted (and the late Sam Lloyd), and obviously the new patients.

And before he knows it, he will end up finding himself once again involved in the complicated, funny, tragic stories of those who, for one reason or another, frequent the beloved hospital that made him a man and a doctor.

Adventures that, at least for this season, will not include the elderly Doctor Kelso: Bill Lawrence has already said that the 85-year-old Ken Jenkins will return to the scene (he retired a few years ago) in the event of a second season. If, however, you are wondering if the legendary Janitor (for those who remember, his name turned out to be Glenn Matthews) and the fantastic Jordan Cox will see each other again, then know that Neil Flynn and Christa Miller will return as guest stars already this season.

Nostalgia or disappointment? How to enjoy the return of Scrubs (and what else to watch to console yourself)

Both those who appreciated and those who criticized if not despised this revival of Scrubs essentially focused on a fundamental question: can the return of a series that generated so much love in a different television era also work today? Where that “today” clearly implies the whole issue of political correctness, or cancel culture and the so-called “woke” if you prefer to put it that way.

Because twenty years ago a mainstream series bearing “liberal” and progressive values ​​could have a positive character who regularly called the male protagonist with female nicknames to mock his sensitivity, while today, you simply can’t stage something like that anymore.

But then the new Scrubs still makes you laugh, as well as cry? Those who were enthusiastic about this ninth and a half season believe that yes, that Scrubs still works, precisely by “denouncing” this social change with the appropriate censor character Sibby (Vanessa Bayer, poor Ted’s replacement) who rebukes behaviors that are not in keeping with today’s sensibilities.

Those who didn’t like the new episodes of the series created by Bill Lawrence have, however, seen the wear and tear of time that has marked not only the faces (and backs) of the protagonists, but also the very meaning of a series that comes from an era in which, without ever saying a bad word, you could be incorrect and make people laugh out loud.

In our opinion, however, the question to ask when analyzing this new Scrubs should be: if this were the first season, would the series enjoy the same overwhelming success as it did then? And the answer, in our opinion, is no.

The new Scrubs must be seen with the eyes, surrounded by wrinkles that were absent at the time, of those who have seen, loved, reviewed, memorized, cited and in the luckiest cases handed down the old Scrubs to subsequent generations. It’s difficult to expect another eight seasons full of memorable episodes, historical gags, images that become eternal through memes.

The first eight seasons will certainly remain the best, and the upcoming one, like any subsequent ones, should be seen as a meeting to be simply grateful for, regardless of what happens: a feeling that we Boris fans understand well in Italy.

Not everyone will be there, some of those who return will be seen for little more than a greeting, and most likely we will not become attached to the new characters much more than we did with those of Med School. But that’s fine too, still better than many other comebacks that we will never see.

Let it not be said, however, that a funny and touching series like Scrubs couldn’t exist today, because Bill Lawrence himself has demonstrated in recent years that “you can’t laugh at anything anymore” is little more than an excuse. First with Ted Lasso, and more recently with Shrinking, in which among other things we saw the aforementioned Christa Miller and Neil Flynn again.

Shrinking is basically Scrubs with psychologists instead of doctors

So the Scrubs model may have aged, but what it generated on the television scene still produces its enchanting effects today.

Rating: 7.5