Scrubs 2026 keeps trying to introduce new characters to the front

It is strange to me that Scrubs would be trying to do this with their revival of the show which has been a surprising and roaring success. The brought back most of the old main members of the cast and it has actually worked out really well. I was worried that it would not work because these reboot shows very rarely do well. Can you think of any that did?

To me Scrubs is one of the only ones that has actually been good if not even perhaps a little bit better than the later seasons of the original run around 20 years ago.

Sure, the main characters look older now because they ARE significantly older than they used to be and some of them actually look pretty terrible. The main men in the show in particular have clearly had a lot of botox and other surgery done and it doesn't really look that great.

I'm ok with all of that though because people get older, that is just life. What I am not ok with is the way that they keep trying to make new characters come to the forefront of the show's plot perhaps in an attempt to completely overhaul the cast to keep the show running after the old members one by one leave the cast.

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JD in particular looks very plastic. This becomes even more noticeable when the wax figure that is Zach Braff.

The storylines are pretty compelling although they are a little unbelievable with Turk now being the head of surgery and JD being head of the entire hospital. Whatever though, it is a fictional television show not a documentary.

The introduction of new characters was necessary I suppose, because many of the old cast didn't come back for the reboot for some reason, and some of the more popular ones like Dr. Cox, only did a couple of episodes. Sadly, some of the original cast are no longer alive and bringing them back wouldn't be possible.

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As the episodes progress the show keeps trying to push the new cast memebers who had nothing to do with the show (and were probably still wearing diapers) when the original show went off the air around 20 years ago. At the start of the season the show is almost entirely about the original cast members but we are now at episode 7 and while the episodes are still good, you can tell that they are slowly but surely making more and more of each self-contained story that is a 22 minute episode be about these new characters and I am so disinterested that I honestly don't remember any of their character names, let alone the actor or actress' names.

It's not that the stories are bad, they aren't. But at the same time there is a very real reason why anyone is watching this and it isn't because of the new cast members. They already tried this with season 9 of Scrubs where nearly the entire cast was all new people and it was wildly unpopular despite having pretty great writing.

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_{almost nobody enjoyed season 9 of Scrubs and it was promptly cancelled}

There's been a lot of excuses made as to why the latter seasons of the original Scrubs run was so bad, even Zach Braff has come out to defend it in some articles like this one but nobody will address the elephant in the room that is the fact that the audience doesn't WANT new characters, they want to continue the story of the original ones.

This is what makes it kind of surprising that they would start to do this again in the reboot. The show is still very very good and every episode enjoys a near 90% approval rating on most websites but I can see the writing on the wall here. There is probably some executive that wants to turn this into a never-ending franchise even after the reboot main characters decide they don't want to / don't need to do this anymore.

It isn't going to work. If the original cast members aren't interested in doing the show for the long-term, then they should just make this reboot a single season and call it a day. Dr Cox (John C. McGinley) bowed out after a few appearances in the beginning of reboot season and we are already seeing less and less of other characters such as "Carla" who is referenced frequently but rarely appears on screen.

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As tough as it may be for the writers, they are going to have to find a way to keep the focus on Turk, JD, and Elliot. If they don't manage to do this, I think the audience will go to the wayside just like they did in season 9.

Sorry guys, but the reason why Scrubs was a hit in the past is the same reason why people are applauding the reboot thus far: The old cast.