As I mentioned before, Seasons 3-5 are the peak of Scrubs for me. I don't hate Season 6, but it is definitely one of the show's weaker seasons and has some very glaring plot issues that hold it back.
I've heard people say that sitcoms start to run out of ideas when a character becomes pregnant. I'm not entirely sure if that's accurate, but if it is, then Season 6 of Scrubs is a damn good piece of evidence. This season starts with Carla, Jordan, and Kim all pregnant, and it feels strangely repetitious. Like there's not really much you can do to change up a pregnancy plotline, so it just felt like I was watching the same show three times at different points in the story. Thankfully, there are other storylines in Season 6, even if they're also pretty hit-or-miss as well. I liked Kim well enough in Season 5, but leaving the show after lying to JD about a miscarriage only to come back in the last few episodes made me really hate the character. Elliot and Keith's relationship woes fared a lot better, as they spend the season preparing for a wedding that the former is slowly feeling less and less enthused about. It's really the only storyline I don't have any qualms with, since otherwise, Season 6 is just really frustrating on a plot level.
Thankfully, while Season 6's plot is a bit of a mess, it still manages to shine through its standalone episodes, both comedic and dramatic. On a purely dialogue and episodic level, Seaosn 6 is really still as good as any other season of Scrubs. It's not as bonkers in its experimentation as Season 5 (though nothing is), but we still have plenty of classics like the first Story episode about multiple people, a musical episode, and an episode using a cold shower to delve into the cast's inner conflicts. And while most of the plot doesn't work too well, a huge plot point that does land for me is the first and only death of a major recurring character, showing that Scrubs can still nail the dramatic moments even in its sixth season. As a whole, I still think this season is really consistent, with the only downright weak episode for me being the clip show. Even if I'm not a fan of what's going on in the story, the comedy is generally still pretty good.
Highlights:
My Musical: Musical episodes are usually hit or miss, in that they're either really good (Buffy) or really bad (Riverdale). Thankfully, Scrubs's musical episode is actually an absolute blast, and nails everything a good musical episode should. All of the songs are entirely original and very well-written, the cast's singing is pretty solid and never heavily autotuned, and we get one of Scrubs's token gut punches as we learn why the episode is a musical. "The Rant Song" and "Guy Love" are bangers.
My No Good Reason/My Long Goodbye: Laverne's death is easily one of the worst in the series entirely because we've known her for the first five and a half seasons of the show, but what really made these two episodes for me is Carla's struggle to say goodbye, elevated by Judy Reyes's tour de force performance. Oh yeah, and Jordan gives birth, I keep forgetting about that for some reason.
My Point Of No Return: While not the best finale of Scrubs, My Point Of No Return is definitely one of the most memorable for its shamelessly cruel (if a bit too cruel) cliffhanger where the season ends with JD and Elliot in an almost kiss. But I think the real meat of this episode is JD and Elliot unsure about the relationships they're in, a plot point that gets built on to great effect in the following season. It's the moment where the show starts to really treat JD and Elliot's relationship with the seriousness it deserves.
Overall, I'm pretty mixed on Season 6. It has a pretty consistently solid lineup of episodes with just as strong writing and humor as the last few seasons, but the overarching story just doesn't land for me a lot of the time, mostly coming off as either repetitious or downright frustrating.
3/5 Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment