In This Section
TV Guide Spotlight
Also on TVGuide.com
|
« Scrubs
Episode Recap: "My Waste of Time"
And we're back to a "merely" watchable episode, albeit one with some inspired bits of business, not least a flashback involving Ken Jenkins, as the now-retired Kelso.
Kelso has left, and Perry Cox is the new Chief of Medicine, a fact he insists everyone recognize by addressing him and referring to him as Chief Doctor Cox; nonetheless, the bureaucratic responsibilities of the office don't sit well with him. Jordan's presence is, at best, only mildly helpful with that, albeit she does give Cox someone to enumerate his woes with. Ted notes that he is now Cox's subordinate, and offers the same sort of slavish assistance he provided Kelso, till the Janitor points out to Ted that he doesn't have to continue toadying, that with Cox he can make a fresh start. The exuberant Ted not only begins asserting himself with Cox, who is only slightly puzzled, but with the Janitor as well, who finds himself no longer the undisputed leader of his little group of hospital misfits.
Meanwhile, Turk is considering, supposedly (at first) for Carla's benefit, having his missing testicle replaced with a prosthetic one; this already ticklish matter is complicated when Carla decides that she would like to have another child, something about which Turk's feelings are mixed at best. And JD, spending some time with his infant kid Sam, also finds himself spending time with a not atypically frazzled Elliot, who is attempting to track down a patient of hers whom she hand once prescribed a now-discredited, even potentially lethal, drug. In the course of helping her with this, JD notes that when he is with Elliot, it's not the same sort of dynamic as he has with Turk, which goads her into playing a prank with him that eventually leads to a fast-food restaurant manager being kidnapped by a lunatic.
In the aftermath of that brush with the law, Elliot and JD bond a bit more, and find Carla and Turk, who have just negotiated a deal for sexual favors on demand in exchange for shooting for pregnancy; meanwhile, the misfits strike a more democratic balance, as the Janitor attempts to make nice with Ted in hopes of bringing them all back together.
This episode particularly reminds of the Marx Brothers' film career...after a string of good to brilliant films, they found themselves making pretty bad ones, then rallied briefly with the film Go West, which begins much as their recent bad ones had but offers at least one extended sequence nearly as good as anything they'd ever done in their other films. This episode has a conversation of sorts between most of the characters in the episode, in which nearly all of them are talking at cross purposes while also making note of the fact that they are doing so...the kind of self-referential in-joke the show has relied upon entirely too often in the last couple of seasons, usually a pity both because it completely loses viewers new to the series and because it is by its nature prone to being a bit tired, but so well worked out in this instance that its hard to complain too much.
The saddest aspect of the episode was reflecting upon how close Scrubs has occasionally come to the contrived Wacky sitcom that JD's fantasy Legal Custodian is, a fact that Scrubs is smart enough make the ultimate point of that joke-sequence. As well as staking out a little of 30 Rock's territory in mocking NBC directly.
A good-enough episode.
For more on Scrubs, please see our Online Video Guide.
|
TVGuide Links:
|
|
|
|
May 2, 2008 12:10 AM
|
|
I can't agree that this episode was even watchable. I didn't even chuckle once during the whole half hour. I'm almost at the point that I wish the show wasn't even coming back next year, it's just sad to see how far the show has fallen this year.
|
|
May 2, 2008 7:36 AM
|
|
The past magic associated with JD's dreaming has worn a bit thin...Zach Braff's efforts in acting to pull the scenes off even seem lethargic and weak. This season has been disappointing for the most part. Still, it's better than anything else NBC has to offer on Thursday night. Anybody else notice how NBC promoted next week's show as "The Scrub's Finale"??? The clip did not mention 'series finale' or 'season finale'. Something tells me nothing is definite at this point for the future of the show.
|
|
May 2, 2008 7:46 AM
|
|
The best part of the episode was "Legal Custodians". And Ted. This was a great Ted episode. But the rest was blah.
|
|
May 2, 2008 9:13 AM
|
|
A so so episode of scrubs is still better than most of TV out there.
|
|
May 2, 2008 9:59 AM
|
|
I second Jambuba
|
|
May 3, 2008 12:59 AM
|
|
|
