Originally posted by Patrick Thistle
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My recollection from an interview with Bill Lawrence (fellow W&M grad, dontcha know*) was that all of that didn't go the way he'd hoped at all.
Scrubs moved networks from NBC to ABC after season 7. ABC/Disney produced and owned the show and NBC cancelled it to make way for something they owned. But that was before they'd reached the natural stopping point for the original characters. Or at least, they really wanted to do another one. So the last "real season," number 8, was the first one on ABC.
I think his original plan for "Scrubs 2.0" was for it to be a whole different show - possibly with a different title - with all new characters.
But ABC wanted to keep the old cast involved to build on that fanbase. In fact, I think that ABC may have insisted that they agree to keep it going after season eight in order to get a chance to do an eighth season at all. So their choice was between ending too soon or going too long and they picked the latter. They agreed to end the way they wanted to in season 8 and then bring the old characters into the "new" show part time and fade them out over time.
But then Scrubs 2.0 or Scrubs: Interns, as it was called, only lasted a season. As I recall, they knew it was coming so the finale was written as a finale, but they weren't really able to pay-it-off in a way that did justice to the whole series. And it didn't last long-enough to really fulfill whatever potential the new cast had. So ultimately it just felt like a disjointed and unnecessary coda to a beloved long-running show that had already had a good ending.
At least, I think that's how I recall the story going. Either way, I know it was about commerce and it wasn't an artistic decision to tack on that last season with the interns. Because, of course, that would be dumb.
But if you want to remember it as it should have been, you can just watch season 8 as the last season and forget there ever was another season.
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