'Scrubs': Now That It's Been Saved, Can It Be Saved?

"Scrubs" bid farewell to NBC on Thursday in appropriate style, with moments alternatively sweet and stupid, silly and senseless. Now what?

Unless the world we've been living in is merely one of J.D.'s fantasy sequences, "Scrubs" will rematerialize next season on ABC. Once a cult favorite (for all the good and bad that implies), "Scrubs" has been surpassed in the buzzmeter by the likes of "The Office" and "30 Rock," which makes one wonder what exactly the Alphabet net hopes to get out of the show.

More than 25 years ago, in a much more forgiving climate for broadcast series and closer to its creative highpoint, "Taxi" made the reverse move, jumping from ABC to NBC at the start of its fifth season. The sharp writing kept right on coming, producing such episodes as the two-part "Scenskees from a Marriage," "Elaine and the Monk," "Arnie and the Kids," "Jim's Marios" and "Simka's Monthlies." I mean, we're talking classic stuff.  Nevertheless, the show's ratings tumbled — NBC initally placed the show in the Thursday 9:30 p.m. timeslot after a little-seen new show called "Cheers," before moving it three times  — and it was canceled at season's end.

"Scrubs," though at its height as joyful, touching and inventive as "Taxi" if not more so (I'll take Vic Ferrari over "Guy Love," but your mileage may vary), has struggled to maintain its creative juice in recent years. For all its craziness, the show is openly formulaic — on Thursday's season finale, J.D. had a line that jokingly called out the typical scenario — and so each episode depends on how funny or touching the show can be in that formula.  It's hit or miss.

Heading into season eight, "Scrubs" ain't likely to have many new viewers discover the show, even if ABC offers a larger base audience for Bill Lawrence & Co. to draw from.  And those newbies figure to be negated by long-term viewers who will take NBC's abandonment of the show as another sign that it's no longer essential television. Certainly, the good people at ABC and "Scrubs" have thought this through and concluded that the enterprise is still worth pursuing, at least on a pocketbook level. But creatively, there's a big challenge ahead.

Suggestions?  This might or might not already be in the works, but "Scrubs" should take a cue from "The Office" and finally put their own Jim and Pam together — for good. J.D. and Elliot have never gotten to play out their relationship on a romantic level for more than a few episodes at a time.  It's time to unshackle those two and let their own particular madness flower inside of a long-term relationship. (That kind of energy was mostly wasted when they were paired with Kim and Keith, respectively.) Beyond that, to counter the inconsistency of its more cartoonish efforts, "Scrubs" needs to either make its characters less shtick-dependent and more likable on a human level or find some new ones who will be. The series leads are stuck in a rut, and as for the Janitor, Ted, the Todd — those guys are played, Jerry, played.

"Scrubs" has reached a point where a number of the characters just don't seem worth caring about.  To make the ABC episodes worth our while, "Scrubs" need to make us fall in love again.

— Jon Weisman