ABC Studios | 2009 | 414 minutes | List price: $54.99 | Get it for less at Amazon

“Scrubs,” the innovative and quirky comedy from Bill Lawrence and starring Zach Braff (GARDEN STATE), has been tested time and time again as it has been threatened with cancellation, cancelled but then renewed, and finally, juggled from one network to another. Originally airing on NBC, “Scrubs” follows J.D., a good doctor with a heart of gold who consistently gets lost in the fantastical world inside of his head, his best friend Turk (Donald Faison), a surgeon who is also the other half of J.D.’s “bromance,” Elliot (Sarah Chalke), the neurotic doctor who has an on again, off again romance with J.D., and Carla (Judy Reyes), the sassy nurse married to Turk, as they each struggle with their careers and their relationships at the Sacred Heart teaching hospital. The comedy was original in its presentation, but as NBC continuously wavered on renewing or canceling the show, the series unfortunately was allowed to devolve into gimmicks and caricatures of the principals roles in its later seasons and a lot of the spark that made the show so good in the beginning seemed to be gone.

When “Scrubs” was finally cancelled by NBC though, ABC picked the show up and Season 8 proved to be more indicative of the level of comedy viewers came to expect with the show when it initially premiered. The writing was tighter, the characters crisper and there was a new breath of life into the series that hadn’t been seen in the past couple of years. Sure, a periphery character such as the hospital’s lawyer Ted (Sam Lloyd) was still nothing more than the sad sack who delivered all of his brief lines with the same whining tone, and there were the gimmick plots that the series had come to rely on as crutches, this time sending the entire cast to the Bahamas with J.D. and Turk sporting Tiki Head necklaces in homage to the Brady Bunch traveling to Hawaii in one of their latter seasons, but there was something in each of the episodes that had been missing for too long, a sense of fun. Lawrence and his talented cast seemed to be enjoying themselves once again, and in turn, this made the show a bit more fun to watch.

Season 8 also featured some great guest roles including Courtney Cox (“Friends”) appearing in a few episodes as the hospital’s new Chief of Medicine and the wonderfully delightful Kate Micucci as the ukelele playing love interest of Ted. Rounding out the cast for the eighth season was a new group of interns with standout performances by Eliza Coupe as Dr. Denise Mahoney and Sonal Shah as Dr. Sunny Day.

For fans of the show who may have stopped watching a couple of seasons ago as its impending cancellation was announced and who may have grown tired of the less than stellar episodes, Season 8 should prove to be a good way to get back into the series.

For the first ever blu-ray release of the series, ABC has released a two-disc set that features:

Disc One

• “It’s All in the Name” (2:48) an edited together clip of every girl’s name that Dr. Cox has called J.D.
• Audio commentary

Disc Two

• “My Bahama Vacation” (20:00) a documentary of filming the two episodes in the Bahamas
• Deleted scenes
• Alternate lines
• Bloopers (3:00)
• “Scrubs Interns” Webisodes: “Our Intern Class” (5:00); “Our Meeting with J.D.” (4:00); “Our Meeting in the Broom Closet” (3:00); “Screw You with Ted and the Gooch” (2:00); “The Late Night with Jimmy Show” (4:00); “Our Meeting with the Brain Trust” (3:00); “Legal Custodian Outtakes” (3:00); “Our Bedside Manner” (2:00); “Our Meeting with Turk and the Todd” (2:00); “Our Final Advice” (4:00); “Our Meeting with Carla” (Exclusive) (3:00); “Legal Custodians Episode” (Exclusive) (3:00)
• Audio commentary

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Series Rating:

Blu-ray bonus features: AVERAGE