Scrubs: the cast’s chemistry is still so sparky it totally carries this zinger-packed comeback

Scrubs: the cast’s chemistry is still so sparky it totally carries this zinger-packed comeback Dr Cox is still electrifying, the original cast’s interactions are a joy to watch, and after a couple of episodes it finds its tone – making it just the comfort TV we need right now I t is possible to believe contradictory things. For instance, I believe TV’s reliance on reviving old shows is a risk-averse, creative regression. On the other hand, I love it. I particularly love it when fictional characters have visibly aged. There’s a broken humanity that you don’t get with flawless, collagen-rich skin. You sense you could talk to them about your sciatica and they’d get it. I got that feeling with the new series of Scrubs (Disney+, from Thursday 26 February), a show I once mainlined on E4. Scrubs was as comforting as tea and toast. Surprisingly malleable, too. In its bones, it was a coming-of-age workplace bromance between junior doctors JD and Turk, played by then newcomers Zach Braff and Donald Faison. Their chemistry was the show’s anchor, balancing sassy racial harmony with irreverence and heart, as they bore witness to universal human drama. But is it healthy enough to survive resuscitation, more than 15 years after its last episode aired? Sensibly, the writers have shaken things up. JD has grown into complacent early middle age, working as a private doctor for the affluent and elderly. “You write scripts in the suburbs” is Turk’s withering appraisal. (For a hot second, I thought he was beefing with Braff’s indie film-making.) Braff directs the first episode, in which a problem with one of JD’s pampered patients takes him back to Sacred Heart, the training hospital where he earned his wheels. The move brings him face to face with old comrades, including old flame Elliot, cheerful chauvinist the Todd and an emotional Turk, who is suffering from burnout. “I wish this guy would die all at once, instead of in tiny little pieces,” the baby-faced chief surgeon shockingly exc...