Scrubs

A ninth season. Wow. In fact, a change of scenery has done Scrubs a world of good. The new students are funny. McGinley is great as always--so, too, is Turk (Donald Faison).

It's a solid little comedy, in which Scrubs fans can recognize the spirit of the show they loved, even if it's not Scrubs at its best.

Scrubs has lost none of its endearing ability to mix earnest sentiment with sardonic gag-centric humor.

The rest of the new or new-ish faces are occasionally funny one-note characters....Still, the old crew made me laugh on more than one occasion as I watched the first two episodes of Season 9 (the Todd made me giggle every time he turned up).

It works because the three regulars--Zach Braff, Donald Faison and especially John McGinley--are all over these episodes, and the four newcomers are kept in their place.

It's not terrifically awful, but it's also not as reliably fun as Scrubs was in its prime.

The jokes don’t catch fire in Tuesday night’s opener, but by the second episode things are starting to click.

At this point, Scrubs has turned its original style into a formula; the fantasy sequences are more predictable, the earnest denouements are automatic. It’s a good formula, but one that’s no longer vibrant.

The transplant is unlikely to produce a dramatic rally. But it does give friends and family a reason to keep visiting.

Right now Lucy is just a wide-eyed innocent with eager-beaver ambition, but she's verging on dumb. In other words, the writers need to get a fix on that character fast, or she won't be someone to root for. Of the other newbies, I like the bratty, entitled Cole (Dave Franco, younger brother of some guy gueststarring on General Hospital) and grumpy Drew (Michael Mosley, a David Simon recruit from The Wire and Generation Kill).