It's a big anniversary for Scrubs this weekend, with October 2nd marking 15 years since we first met the men and women of Sacred Heart. The impressively durable series -- it ran for nine years on two different networks (including that weird pseudo-spinoff Season 9) -- helped usher in a new era for network TV comedy, with its then-rare use of a single camera format and more multilayered storylines. With that in mind, we're taking an updated look at the Top 10 episodes of the series.
The best episodes of Scrubs are those that have plenty of goofy humor, an imaginative daydream sequence or three and a stomach punch at the end to remind viewers the show still takes place at a hospital... where people occasionally die. So without further ado, here are the Top 10 episodes of Scrubs.
"My Half-Acre" (Season 5)
Okay, so they don't all have to be gut-wrenching episodes - this one was just flat-out silly, but in a good way. The games of romantic musical chairs that J.D. and Elliot played over the years didn't always work, as it was easy to predict (correctly) that they would wind up together in the end. However, Julie (Mandy Moore), a female version of J.D. (only even clumsier), was a nice distraction for a while until they inevitably broke up a few episodes later. She was a different type of woman than J.D. had dated before, mainly because they shared a lot of the same interests, including daydreaming and a fondness for Harry Potter. She didn't come with the same baggage or lack of self-assuredness that prior girlfriends had, as evidenced by the portrait of the two of them atop a horse wearing wizard's hats. That visual was easily the third-funniest part of the episode (the second being Elliot, dressed like J.D., with wig and all, having a "lesbian" kiss with Julie).
But first prize for this episode has to go to Chris Turk, for his Air Band prowess and lip-synching finesse. As part of the subplot, the Janitor wanted to enter an Air Band competition for water park tickets and held auditions in the hospital. Turk easily won the lead role after an inspiring audition to Bel Biv Devoe's "Poison" and finished up with a performance of Boston's "More than a Feeling," backed by the full Air Band. There were no emergencies or moral dilemmas in this episode. This was just a great example of Scrubs having a lot of fun.
"My Cake" (Season 4)
Unlike most of the emotional episodes on this list, in "My Cake," we got the bad news right up front. J.D.'s brother Dan (played by Tom Cavanagh) showed up to announce that their dad had died. (Actor John Ritter, who had played their father, died a year earlier.) Dan then spent the next few days living at his brother's house, sitting in the bathtub and drinking beers while J.D. tried to work through his mourning at the hospital. Meanwhile, Turk learned he had Type II Diabetes, which led to a funny scene where both he and J.D. felt like they'd lost their bad news "thunder" to the other.
This episode had a nice balance of weight and goofiness, a staple of the best episodes from the series. While J.D. and Turk were dealing with life and death, the Janitor pulled a number of pranks on Kelso to make him believe he was losing his mind. He utilized a rented crane and poor Ted (and his Bozo-fro) to pull off the stunts, each one more daring than the last. In the end, Kelso got revenge on the Janitor and Dan, Dr. Cox and J.D. shared beers, sports and an evening on the couch together reminiscing about their dead fathers. There would be other, better episodes that proved Cox's endless complaints about J.D. were just lip service, but this was a good start.
"My Life in Four Cameras" (Season 4)
This one had a candy-colored shell and a surprisingly dark center. The hospital was facing budget cuts and Dr. Cox was tasked with firing a cafeteria worker. Meanwhile, a former Cheers writer was diagnosed with a serious condition. All of these events led J.D. to imagine his life as a sitcom, where everyone gets healthy at the end and every budget can be fixed in a half-hour. And that's when we heard the words any classic TV fan is familiar with: "J.D.'s sitcom fantasy was filmed before a live studio audience."
J.D.'s extended fantasy turned the dark hallways of the hospital into a brightly lit sitcom set like Everybody Loves Raymond or The King of Queens. And along with his fantasy came every nuance and cliché from that style of show. From the "set-up, set-up, punchline" dialogue and exaggerated costumes to a hokey talent show featuring guest star Clay Aiken, everything was letter perfect. Even the Janitor received applause worthy of Fonzie or Al Bundy upon his entrance. But once J.D. snapped back to reality, he realized life wasn't a sitcom and problems take more than a half-hour to solve. People get fired, patients die, and we were left with another powerful episode that caught us off guard at the end.
"My Old Lady" (Season 1)
Early on in its run (the 4th episode to be precise), Scrubs figured out exactly what it wanted to be - a sitcom with depth. Sure, this episode featured its share of silly moments, like a game of wheelchair bowling and a fantasy sequence with J.D. and Death playing Connect Four. But we also saw the flipside, as J.D.'s voiceover informed us that the odds of a patient dying at Sacred Heart were pretty good - about one in three.
J.D. met a patient facing those odds, Mrs. Tanner, whose kidney failure meant certain death unless she went on dialysis. Rather than undergo the lengthy procedure for the rest of her life, she decided her time was up and she was ready to go. (This prompted a classic sight gag as Lloyd delivered a "ton of bricks" to Dr. Dorian.) In the wrong hands, this episode could've become a syrupy mess. However, both the script and Kathryn Joosten's turn as Mrs. Tanner kept everything on point. There have been tons of episodes where J.D. learns a tough lesson about life, but Joosten's honest performance prevented this one from becoming over-sentimental and helped point Scrubs in the direction it's been heading for eight-plus seasons.
"My Musical" (Season 6)
At this point in Season 6, the show had been cruising along nicely, so it was time to change things up a bit. A patient was brought to Sacred Heart with a curious condition: all spoken conversation sounded like singing to her. Those weird symptoms (caused by a brain aneurysm) kicked off a half-hour crammed with choreographed dance numbers, medleys and solos.
There was really no middle-ground with this episode. Either it was going to be great or it was going to fail miserably. Fortunately, they nailed it. The tone and spirit of Scrubs was captured in each of the eight songs, from the remorseful, "Gonna Miss You, Carla," to the obvious, "The Rant Song," to the downright juvenile, "Everything Comes Down to Poo." And J.D. and Turk's show-stopping duet, "Guy Love" took the essence of their relationship over five seasons and boiled down to a tight two-and-a-half minutes. Without the added difficulty of trying to force a musical into a half-hour sitcom, this episode would've been solid, but the fact that they actually pulled it off makes it worthy of this top ten list.
Continue on for the Top 5 Scrubs episodes...
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