Beloved ‘00s hospital comedy to return after 16 year hiatus

Russell Brown

Columnist & features writer·New Zealand Listener·

14 Feb, 2026 06:02 PM2 mins to read

Subscribe to listenAccess to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.Subscribe now

‌

SaveShare this article

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter/XLinkedInReddit

Donald Faison, left, and Zach Braff return to Sacred Heart in the new season of Scrubs. Photo / Supplied

Long before he created Ted Lasso and Shrinking – back when Netflix was still sending out DVDs for rent – Bill Lawrence was the man behind Scrubs.

He produced, directed and wrote the medical comedy series for nine seasons and it apparently never left his mind after it bowed
out in 2010. Lawrence teased Scrubs fans for years with talk of a revival, and last year the ABC network, which screened the last couple of seasons of Scrubs, commissioned a new series – which is, officially, season 10 of the old one.

Zach Braff returns as John “JD” Dorian, along with Donald Faison as Christopher Turk and Sarah Chalke as Elliot Reid, with various other original cast members slated for guest spots. New cast members include Vanessa Bayer (I Love That for You), Jacob Dudman (The Stranger) and stand-up comedian Ava Bunn. There’s a sense that it hasn’t been an easy production to get to air – one of the two showrunners, Tim Hobert, departed over “creative differences” and Lawrence can’t act as showrunner himself because he’s bound by a production contract with Warner.

That hasn’t stopped him talking about it. “I think the main impetus is selfish,” he told Variety a year ago. “It’s that we’re all friends, and we enjoy spending time together, and you can’t meet a writer or an actor or a crew member on that show who didn’t count that as one of the highlights of their career. And so all of us were like, even if it’s just that, why not do it again? And that’s part of the fun.”

Anyway, season nine (which introduced a group of new intern characters) has been memory-holed and JD is back alongside Turk at Sacred Heart and that’s the main thing. Screening here only a day after it debuts in the US.

Scrubs screens from February 26, Disney+

SaveShare this article

Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Copy LinkEmailFacebookTwitter/XLinkedInReddit