In the revival of Scrubs, J.D. (Zach Braff) is no longer at the bottom of the totem pole – he’s now the Chief of Medicine, working closely with his ex Elliot (Sarah Chalke) and his best friend Turk (Donald Faison) to train the next generation of interns working at Sacred Heart Hospital.
Awards Buzz spoke with Braff about the fact that this revival took years to make happen and that it’s finally here:
“We’re so lucky, man. We talked about it for years and so many logistics of it were so tricky that, every time we were together, people would say, hey, are you going to do it? And we’d be like, I don’t know, maybe it’s a limited series. Maybe it’s a movie like Psych did. And I honestly never imagined it would be like ABC primetime, Hulu the next day. It really is the best incarnation of what I daydreamed it would’ve been.”
He addressed the potentially objectionable choice to not have J.D. and Elliot be together anymore:
“I understand that’s probably the most controversial thing that the fans were passionately against. Not universally, but a lot of them did not like that. I think for us, we went back to the ideology that what JD sees on the projection of that sheet at the end of episode eight is what he hopes would happen. We wanted to talk about midlife and how, a lot of times, many of your dreams don’t come true and marriages don’t work out. They always had a contentious relationship and so we would use Turk and Carla as the perfect relationship that is still going strong and is your dream couple. And, surprise, the couple that was always fighting and having a hard time didn’t make it. We knew that people would have strong feelings about it but we also thought it gives us a lot of stuff to play with for drama and comedy. The Elliot/J.D. conflict is very fun and them just getting along well isn’t really fun to write.”
Watch the video above to hear about his busy schedule directing Bill Lawrence shows – this one, Rooster, and Shrinking – and whether he thinks he’ll be back in front of the camera in a film he directs soon.
Season one of Scrubs is streaming on Hulu, with season two returning this fall on ABC.
