Scrubs

Scrubs

Episode 8: My Fifteen Minutes

Episode 9: My Day Off

By: Carlos Uribe

Scrubs is about a bunch of doctors. It aired from 2001 to 2008 on NBC and from 2009 to 2010 on ABC.

Spoilers Ahoy!

The episode “My Fifteen Minutes” is one that deals with numerous issues for the interns. The actual episode title refers to the temporary time that J.D. and Turk are given attention to by the media when he saves the life of a news cameraman outside a strip club. This leads to the hospital having a media campaign that includes both J.D. and Turk. Turk's ethnicity and the hospital's wish to portray diversity leads to them cutting J.D. out of the campaign. This frustrates Turk because he doesn't want to be a role model based on race but rather based on his accomplishments. The media campaign is torn down when he threatens to sue and Keslo realizes that Turk would actually have a strong case. While Turk is dealing with racial issues, J.D. and Elliot are both dealing with separate issues that don't have to do with the main plot.

J.D. is dealing with intern evaluations.. The person that is evaluating him is supposed to be Dr. Cox but in typical Cox fashion, J.D. is asked to do the evaluation himself. This frustrates J.D. because he wants to know what Dr. Cox thinks of him which frustrates Dr. Cox since J.D. is so eager to please anyone else that he doesn't seem to want approval from himself. This is a nice story that helped show that Dr. Cox truly wants J.D. to succeed and it's further exemplified when Dr. Cox speaks to the medical board about how valuable J.D. is as an intern. Meanwhile, Elliot is dealing with feeling left out when Carla ditches her. Her issue is solved when she realizes that she belongs in Sacred Heart. While the episode is funny, it lacks a certain sense that brings everything together. While J.D. is connected to the main plot, he's eventually pushed out of it just like he got kicked out of the media campaign. It simply felt like the episode lacked a focus.

The other episode I'm reviewing is “My Day Off”. This was an episode that began with J.D. going out and hitting on some hot girl. This ends up backfiring on him when his appendicitis starts to act up or something. The deal is that he's going to be a patient at Sacred Heart. It happens to turn out that both Elliot and Turk that get to treat him. J.D. isn't very happy with Elliot's care as she can be very rough and he even feels violated by her. This leads Elliot to realizing that she lacks complete bedside manner. She might be a competent doctor but people don't like being treated by her. She has cold hands, a cold personality, and J.D. feels like he's getting beat up by her. J.D. is eventually assigned surgery which happens to be Turk. The problem is that all J.D. can see is Turk as a frat boy and not as the capable and professional surgeon that he is. This leads to the conflict where J.D. doesn't want Turk to do the surgery before realizing how idiotic he's being. This plot was a great way for the viewer to see how it's like to be a patient at this wacky hospital and under the care of our main characters. It was funny and helped provide a different point of view for the show.

It also meant that Dr. Cox didn't have much to do. He's given a sub-plot where an old mentor of his becomes one of his patients. This mentor used to be the Chief of Medicine for ten years and Dr. Cox clearly wants to impress him. He's not happy when Kelso and his mentor seem to get along. That is until the mentor reveals to Dr. Cox that he knows that Kelso is a pain in the ass and that he's disappointed in Dr. Cox. That's not because Dr. Cox isn't a good doctor (because he is) but because Dr. Cox refuses to play the game and so is never put in a position where he can change how the hospital runs. This was a great sub-plot that had Dr. Cox go from being a mentor to being a mentee-it's almost as it he became J.D.