Scrubs is back and nothing has changed (good)

The medical sitcom Scrubs returns sixteen years later, and except for a few wrinkles, it’s as if time has stood still. Best idea?

You didn’t really ask for it, but you’ll still be entitled to it: after the Malcolm disaster a few days ago, Scrubs, another emblematic comedy series of its time, is getting its cherry on Disney+. A “revival” (don’t talk about “reboot”, a dirty word expunged from communication) which was a bit of a shock: season 9, completed in 2010, satisfied almost no one by imposing new internals on the forceps.

But rather than modernizing the concept to try to charm Generation Z, showrunner Bill Lawrence, who has since given birth to Shrinking and Ted Lasso, is betting on inaction. Same jokes, same comic timing, same characters (with a few new ones all the same), same voice-over, same settings (the Sacré-Cœur hospital was recreated identically in the studio, the old filming location no longer being available), same nostalgic-funny vibe… It’s like we’re in slippers.

It might smell like mothballs, but it’s actually an admirable piece of rehearsal work carried out by an obsessive watchmaker. A form of resistance to the spirit of the times no longer so common in modern television, and which is fully embodied through the presence of Zach Braff.

With a few more wrinkles on his face, the fifty-year-old actor carries his eternal teenage phlegm here in the skin of JD, who has become chief doctor. A star of the past decade, director of a little melancholy masterpiece (Garden State) and then leaves, who proudly assumes that the big role of his life has always been played on the small screen, the medical coat on his back.

Scrubs, nine episodes to watch on Disney+