BY MUNYARADZI VOMO
Watching Scrubs makes me sick. Not that it is a bad show, I just deliberately fall temporarily ill in order to immerse myself in the storylines. It makes me feel closer to the setting as I imagine myself as a patient in that crazy hospital hoping to be “healed” through laughter.
Scrubs started in 2001 and we all knew it was a good show, but I doubt anyone could’ve predicted it would run for eight seasons. Considering that Friends, perhaps the most successful sitcom of our time, ran for 10 seasons, Scrubs is doing really well and might even do better than that.
By the way, Friends’ Courtney Cox will join Scrubs as Dr Maddox for the first three episodes of this new season.
Not that Scrubs needs a new addition to the crazy yet talented cast, but her presence will surely make us want to watch it even more. It kind of feels like after leaving her friends in Manhattan, Monica Geller studied to be a doctor just like her brother, Ross.
So as new people join the original cast of Scrubs it should be interesting to see where other Scrubs cast members have gone since joining the sitcom.
The leading man, Zach Braff, stars as John “JD” Dorian, the dreamy doctor who is a boy trapped in a man’s body. Without Dr Dorian, the entire show would have been a whole lot different. Braff was nominated for three Golden Globes and an Emmy for his contribution. This resulted in him earning roles in productions like Chicken Little, Arrested Development, The Last Kiss and The Ex, among others.
His partner in crime on Scrubs, Donald Faison, who stars as Dr Chris Turk, is also doing well for himself outside the sitcom realm.
He has starred in Skyline, Remember The Titans, Uptown Girls and Next Day Air. He is an integral part of Scrubs’ silliness and it makes it very hard to take him seriously when he is the mean dude in the horror flick, Skyline. It is said that, as in the show, he is real-life best friends with Braff.
Still on the sitcom’s main characters, Sara Chalke is yet another force to be reckoned with. She plays Dr Elliot Reid, who is reminiscent of Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe in Friends. At first glance she is a sweet, naive girl, but as you get you get to know her you realise there is more to the blonde doctor. Her talents were so great other shows like How I Met Your Mother, Cougar Town and Mad Love started calling. Though that may be, her heart seemingly still remains with Scrubs.
The final person on my list of the top four Scrubs actors is Neil Flynn. Yes, most of us know him only as “the janitor”. In a show that’s about well-educated medical practitioners, who would think a janitor would steal the limelight? But Flynn does.
He was only meant to appear in the first episode of the first season, but apparently he was so popular that to date we still have him on the show. He is still so popular he even got his own show, The Middle, which is a success. He made other appearances in productions like Smallville, King Of The Hill, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull and Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.
The rest of the cast is also doing well and should continue to do so, with Cox joining them in season eight.
Catch Scrubs today at 4.20pm on Sony TV.