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Episode Recap: "My Number One Doctor"
...And this is the Scrubs we've seen a little too much of, of late...good enough to watch, but only intermittently or fitfully funny, and perhaps not quite seemlessly mixing the frequent tragedy of medical life with the various sorts of comedy offered up.
A recap can be pretty quick on this episode, since the A, B, and C plotlines are pretty thin in outline: Elliot faces an ethical dilemma when she learns that one of her private-practice patients, dying of ALS, has landed in the hospital in a suicide attempt; Elliot is unsure as to whether to make the authorities and her patient's home-healthcare nurse aware of this, or to allow the patient to die on her own terms. JD suggests she should tell, for no better reason than that Elliot tends to let such things get under her skin; by episode's end, Elliot has decided to keep her patient's secret, having accidentally let the dying woman know how more effectively to drug herself to death. Meanwhile, JD, having discovered how insanely competitive Turk and Cox are, gloats when RateMyDoctor.org, which Kelso has just signed Sacred Heart Hospital with, consistently shows JD as the most popular of the hospital's doctors; they temporarily sabotage his rankings by having the Todd claim to be JD with his patients. And Carla, seeing the Janitor with his womanfriend Lady, named by her parents after the Disney cartoon dog, gets to know Lady slightly (and discovers that she is surprisingly normal-seeming) and then urges the Janitor to reveal his true nature to her, against Kelso's warning. When Lady can't believe the litany of eccentricity the Janitor spews about himself, Carla steps in to suggest that he's joking, much to Lady's relief; Carla then warns the Janitor to spill just a little of his craziness at a time.
Best (apparent) Neil Flynn improvisation in the episode: during his self-revelation to Lady, the Janitor notes that he doesn't "believe in the Moon." It's just the back of the Sun, don'cha know.
Least convincing aspect/dilemma: Well, perhaps I can buy the healthy-looking, spunky Lou Gehrig's disease sufferer...it helps make the point that she is about to lose all her physical faculties, and she is, after all, portrayed by a television actress of the typically pretty and slender sort (not quite model-anorectic, but close)...but Elliot's hang-wringing over her decision to end her life intentionally, a month or three before the disease would kill her anyway, didn't ring true for me. I'm reminded of a discussion I saw once of a M*A*S*H episode, wherein the doctors in the the episode anguish over removing the healthy appendix of a foolhardy frontline officer, to put him out of commission temporarily so that he wouldn't endanger more of his men. The writers and actors heard from their advisors after the episode aired that unlike the characters in the episode, real Army veteran doctors wouldn't've missed any sleep over performing such medically unnecessary but almost harmless surgery for the greater good. Elliot's crisis, such as it is, is a considerably lesser one. (And this is an example, folks who like to suggest that Scrubs is just a frothy clown show, of how it actually isn't...even if this isn't the best example of how the series has tackled some thorny issues.)
4th Wall Breaking: As commenters Jayhawk and SemperSF allude to below, there's a sequence in which the characters are apparently reacting to, and perhaps actually name-checking, some of their favorite online commentators on the series. An amusingly pomo touch.
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Dec 7, 2007 3:39 AM
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This was definitely a subpar episode. Did love the "rate your doc" comments that were actual viewer comments about the characters. Also loved Todd on a "rate your d...(well you know)" site.
The janitor storyline was ridiculous.
And no Keith to call Elliot names?
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Dec 7, 2007 4:50 AM
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I really liked this episode and all the other ones this season. It is probably because I just love scrubs and am trained to laugh at anything on the show.
One thing I did love last night and all of this season was Kelso. He has just been cracking me up. His love for muffins is so off the wall, yet normal it is great.
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Dec 7, 2007 8:16 AM
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Yet again, I disagree. I thought this was a very good episode. I guess that is just more proof as to how subjective television watching is.
I loved how several of the staffers pretended to be something they were not to get something they wanted. Turk & Cox pretended to have actual sympathetic bedside manners to get a higher rating, Kelso pretended to be buddies with Carla so she would not tell him the ending to the last Harry Potter book, and janitor pretended to be normal for his Lady. I did not think any of the storylines fell short.
I also could not disagree more about Elliot's dilemma not ringing true. They have established her very conservative personal beliefs (especially in last year's episode where her and Cox faced off politically) and I would think the sanctity of life would fall squarely in her beliefs. Add to that the fact that she is a Dr. and has taken an oath to protect life. Even middle-of-the-road doctors would have a problem with this based on the ethics of that oath alone. IMO, Elliot would absolutely "hand-wring" over this. And I also believed she would think about her decision not to tell for the rest of her life (though I personally agreed with her decision.)
OK, now I too am falling into the category of taking a comedy to seriously. Back to the funny.
I thought the games that Turk and Cox competed in were hilarious: "find a vein in the junkie," "gauzeball," and "who can stay the longest in the guy with a fungal infection under the fat flap in his stomach's room." Of course JD cannot handle smells of that magnitude.
Also liked all the the staffers pretending to sleep while Elliot is droning on about her patient. I too have loved Kelso lately.
Lastly, LOVED the possible shout-out to the fans about Cox's hair. I remember quite a bit of discussion on the boards last year about how he went from poodle hair, to an almost shaved head, to hair again when they aired episodes out of sequence. I have heard Bill Lawrence and Co. occasionally read fan boards, and this makes me believe it even more.
Sorry, I really liked the episode.
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Dec 7, 2007 9:47 AM
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I also kind of thought it was a subpar episode but there were some good moments. The Todd bringing back www.thetoddtime.com was great but when I checked the website again there was no "tranny" section. I think they need to update that website a little more. The www.rateyourdoc.org is up and it's quite funny. Doug, Todd, Keith, Nurse Shirley(Aloma Wright's new character), Franklyn the Lab Tech(Masi Oka), and all the other characters from the show are all on the website. You all should look it up. I also liked how Dr. Cox referenced Michelle M. when he read his comments about his hair. Most of the episodes so far have had some serious undertones. I hope they're saving the funniest ones for last.
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Dec 7, 2007 1:23 PM
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