1 of 5 | From left to right, Sarah Chalke, Zach Braff and Donald Faison return in the “Scrubs” revival, premiering February 25 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC.
Scrubs was a miracle of a show, combining absurd comedy in a hospital with genuinely poignant moments. Season 1 of the Scrubs revival, premiering Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. EST on ABC, successfully updates it to 2026.
J.D. (Zach Braff) returns to Sacred Heart Hospital to check on a private patient. He catches up with his surgeon best friend Turk (Donald Faison), nurse Carla (Judy Reyes) and fellow doctor Elliot (Sarah Chalke).
Dr. Cox (John C McGinley) is now the chief of medicine and this is where 2026 becomes apparent. Though Cox’s rants have not slowed down, he’s no longer allowed to practice the kind of comedic tough love he used to teach J.D.
J.D.’s narration also feels like it just picked up from the end of Season 9. His head tilt is back and his fantasies inspired by hospital dialogue would’ve been right at home with his intern fantasies.
Turk and J.D. still do their BFF schtick, although some of the physical slapstick wears on them in middle age. Fan favorite supporting characters still work at Sacred Heart, with updates to their personas too.
But new issues in medical practice fuel new stories. Carla is coordinating an overcrowded ER waiting room. Cox is hamstrung by HR regulations and even horndog surgeon The Todd (Robert Maschio) respects modern policy in his own way.
Years of medicine have worn on Dr. Cox and especially Turk. Scrubs is able to deal with both comedically while acknowledging 16 years of medicine since the 2010 series finale.
Cox is a tad softer in his seniority. It makes sense that he values what a doctor J.D. became and realizes how good he had it with students 25 years ago.
But the greatest update to Scrubs is the new medical students. Season 9 broached the subject of the original Scrubs teaching a new class, but the revival has the distance to give it more weight.
Influencer Sam Tosh (Ava Bunn) is the most modern depiction of a new doctor both sharing and studying medicine on social media. Squeamish Asher Green (Jacob Dudman) and egotistical Blake Lewis (David Grindley) are more familiar personalities, as they are in medicine, but every patient is a unique test to them.
Surgeons Dashana (Amanda Morrow) and Amara (Layla Mohammadi) work more closely with Turk. Dashana opens Turk’s eyes to aspects of practice he’s taken for granted, and Amara’s unique backstory and foibles are revealed in Episode 3.
As the new administrator, Sibby Wilson (Vanessa Bayer) is a comic take on the struggle to manage those personalities and still give medical care. Know-it-all Dr. Park (Joel Kim Booster) provides a good foil to returning J.D.
New nurses (Michael James Scott, X Mayo) suggest a dynamic that has already become familiar by the time the new interns arrived.
The revival incorporates new medical diagnoses as both new and returning doctors battle the healthcare system and themselves to try to save patients. While the irreverent humor makes a lot of the heavy issues more palatable, Scrubs isn’t afraid to let its guard down and genuinely tug at heartstrings too.
New episodes of Scrubs will stream Wednesdays on Hulu following ABC airings.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
