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Scrubs shift: 70% will change

Spoilers: Creator Bill Lawrence spills more on those changes in the forthcoming season of Scrubs.

ScrubsSpoilers: Scrubs‘ creator Bill Lawrence has revealed details on some of the changes that will take place to the next season, which shifts focus from hospital to med school. Seventy percent of the cast and the setting, where the stories take place, is different.

Lawrence tells TV critic Alan Sepinwall, producers have built a huge college campus with a teaching hospital attached.

Lawrence: Turk and Cox will take the emissary roles. Cox will be as Dr. Kelso was to the old show, and Turk will be this show’s Dr. Cox. They’re the holdovers. I think what we did that was crafty, if we can make it work, is that I hate when spin-offs don’t have any continuity. “Frasier” was smart and they made him move. How are we going to attack this, knowing that I don’t want to say that suddenly, Turk’s wife is dead and Elliot’s moved away? So the way the show’s set up is Sacred Heart’s been revamped and put on campus, and we actually have these buildings over at Culver Studios. And when the kids are working at the hospital, all the familiar faces will be passing by. I’m booking Sarah (Chalke), Judy (reyes), Ken Jenkins, Sam Lloyd, (Robert) Mascio. So what we’re implying is that the hospital is still moving forward and existing, and you’ll never notice it. Turk will be in most of the stories, and then one day, very casually, he’ll run into his wife at a nurse’s station, and it’ll be as if she’s been working there the whole time. The only thing hampering that for us at all is that Judy and Sarah are pregnant in real life. So they’ve got a short window of working.

Sepinwall: So you won’t be filming at the old hospital anymore?

“No, we moved the whole thing to Culver Studios. The only piece of pipe we’re implying is that the old hospital was such a piece of (garbage) that it got ripped down, and they put the new one up on campus. It has all the Sacred Heart logos on it, but it’s the corporate building at Culver Studios. We built a brand-new set, but the idea is that they ran out of money because of the economy, so there’s doors that go to nowhere and half-finished operating rooms and stuff.”

Lawrence adds that he is aware the shift may not succeed and marr the legacy of his eight year show but says he can live with it.

“The high side was too high. I don’t stand to make money on this particular year of the show. The syndication thing has run out, and it wasn’t a huge hit its last year. For me, there wasn’t a huge financial incentive to keep it going — although in the best world, it’ll catch a new audience and have a new life — but what it came down to for me was talking to the people involved, many of whom I’ve worked with for eight years, and they were all, like, “Keep it going.” For me, as long as I know we gave it a shot, I’ll live with it. And we’re really busting our hump with stories, and being interesting, and characters we haven’t seen.

Lawrence has previously noted half the cast, if not 60% will be comprised of freshmen, with one fairly famous name.

Source: What’s Alan Watching?

5 Responses

  1. If a name change comes into affect, then i approve of this.

    Only way i can see this succeeding is if it starts on a somewhat fresh slate by being a true spinoff via a different name, ie. Interns. etc

    Otherwise i’ll definitely watch this.

  2. A lot of people think its bad the show is continuing, but I see Bill’s point. These are people who would be without a job once the series concluded, I don’t see anything wrong with continuing to provide them with a career and money especially in an industry as shaky as TV production. I say good on him for trying and if it flops, at least it saw the light of day unlike that long-rumoured Office spinoff.

  3. It’s very “spin-off”-esque, almost like The Golden Palace set in a hotel after The Golden Girls ended. These shows don’t usually last long after dramatic changes.

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