The musical episode of Scrubs proved to be something much better than a really, really horrible idea. How’s that for praise? But seriously, this was the best episode of the season so far. While it was overall a decent episode of a sitcom, it was quite a solid example of a 20-minute musical. There were several good singers in the cast, and worthy selling of their songs by everyone else (hint: Don’t look for J.D., Elliot, or Cox belting to the rafters in the group sing that closes ep 2.13, “My Philosophy.”) I didn’t even mind the ridiculously contrived reason everyone was singing. But the fact that this was the best episode in memory had nothing to do with singing. In the end, I feel there are two reasons contributing to Scrubs’s excellence that sometimes cause it to collapse under its own weight:

• Will they-Won’t they? They won’t.
  Bill Lawrence and company made a wise decision not to risk Moonlighting Disease, and had J.D. and Elliot get together in season one. (And again in season two, then season three.) This worked fabulously, a single episode ultimately showing us why these two characters had a lot of chemistry but ultimately didn’t belong together. It was wonderful early conflict on the show to watch J.D. and Elliot attempt their relationship a couple more times. But Rachel and Ross they are not. It’s probably no coincidence that you can time the show’s decline to the moment that Elliot and J.D. were over for good. Since then, the show has spent very little time developing their post-romantic relationship, which is too bad because it might be unique to sitcom land, and so Elliot feels vestigial lately. (I’m just hoping that Pam and Jim can keep up the tension. I want years and years of good The Office!)
• Four (count ‘em) FOUR plotlines.
  For the longest time, sitcoms had a plot and a subplot. Lucy tries to get on Ricky’s show, and whenever necessary to cut away from that story, Fred and Ethel argue about whether to go to the club or the fights. While most sitcoms still rely on this format, a little show called Seinfeld introduced something new to us with three subplotlines, frequently melting into each other at the end of the episode, often with a delightfully funny result. A few other shows pulled off the same thing from time to time, Friends chief among them. Scrubs ups the ante. If you look closely, you notice that an episode has FOUR subplots, all cut together at breakneck speed. It’s rare that a scene lasts more than one page. While this helps the show move right along, the downside is that in our modern world, wherein we’re lucky if 70% of a show’s airtime is actually show, there’s barely room for four storylines to be satisfactorily developed.

“My Musical” worked. Partly, entertainment came from the unique device of the musical. Mostly, however, the episode was successful because it didn’t fall into the traps listed above. The episode settled for three and sorta a half plotlines: the patient with the brain condition, Carla wanting to return to work, Elliot buying a house, and then the random “Guy Love” song that wasn’t really part of anything. Meanwhile, Elliot and J.D. had an (albeit minor) back-and-forth about rooming together, free from the distractions of their new romantic tangents. Carla and Turk faced a relatable, real-life question that would define their relationship.

As well, the show did what it does best. It had a beginning and a middle of building farce and personal conflict that all got undercut by the reality of a patient facing a serious medical situation. At its best, Scrubs looks like M*A*S*H with, thankfully, a lot fewer puns. They pulled that off this week. I guess I should keep watching. It was still a little short on laughs and still felt a bit rushed. But J.D.’s “We hope” followed by Cox’s “shhh” is the soul of what this show does that puts it above others.

Best songs: Carla reminding Turk she’s Dominican and the cast telling the patient she’s going to be OK.

Best (meta) joke: “Some homeless guy threw poo in my eye!”

Interesting side note: there were no fantasy sequences. Has that every happened before?

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