Zach Braff Says Scrubs Is Go for Season 6

Last year, it was anyone's guess when NBC's dramedy series "Scrubs" would return for its fifth season. The network was very busy pushing their new shows such as "The Office" with Steve Carell and "My Name Is Earl" with Jason Lee. Meanwhile, Zach Braff (writer, director, and star of "Garden State," a movie co-starring Natalie Portman that earned him an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature), Donald Faison ("Remember the Titans" and "Clueless"), and John C. McGinley ("Identity" and "Office Space") along with the entire cast and crew of "Scrubs" waited until mid-season to find out when the episodes they had started filming in Summer of 2005 would finally begin to air.

Fans of the wonderfully balanced series, the last of the great sitcoms remaining on television today, waited impatiently for NBC to bring "Scrubs" back, especially since the more time passed without the season premiere, the greater the worry that it wouldn't come back at all. Ultimately, the elusive fifth season of "Scrubs" premiered in January later than any renewed show should that doesn't run in real time (i.e., "24"). "Scrubs" managed to maintain its comedic meets sometimes-dramatic edge, though it experimented more this season with a more extreme end of outrageous humor than before. It also kept up its tradition of guest stars, pulling off appearances by Gary Busey, Jason Bateman, Mandy Moore, Billy Dee Williams, and Elizabeth Banks ("Spider-Man," "Slither," and "The Sisters") in a key plot twist for the season 5 finale.

Now, after so shaky a ride to and through fifth season, the loyal viewers can rest a little easier for this upcoming year. Zack Braff has stated in one of his recent video blogs that there will indeed be a season 6 for "Scrubs," and it's scheduled to begin shooting August 7th. While this doesn't guarantee that NBC won't push the show to a mid-season crunch again, it provides hope that they realize what a sparkling and authentic gem "Scrubs" is, particularly when one takes stock of current TV trends that lack the merit, integrity, and genius that makes "Scrubs" worthy of their appearance on a TV Guide cover last year that was a reproduction of one of their vintage "M*A*S*H" covers. Of course, "M*A*S*H" is the show to which "Scrubs" is often compared, and it certainly can be held up to the classic series in measure of quality. The characters as well as the overall substance of the show exhibit rich depths of fine acting and writing that we should demand from more half-hours of television these days. And, now we can look forward to at least one more year's worth of episodes.