Scrubs stars Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke know the stakes are high for Season 2

Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke knew the stakes were high when they set about reviving the hit TV sitcom Scrubs a decade and a half after it went off the air.

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“We wanted to deliver for the fans,” said the show’s star Braff (J.D.) who along with co-stars Faison (Turk) and Chalke (Elliot) took time out from shooting season 2 of the revival to speak with Postmedia. “The fans have such a connection to the original show, and we were all terrified that we wouldn’t, you know, nail it.”

By all accounts the new series, which airs on ABC and streams on Hulu, satisfied fans as the show, which first ran from 2001-2010, came back this past February and, according to Disney, was one of its most streamed comedies.

“The reaction was so lovely, beyond anything we could have dreamt. So now we just want to keep that going, and we work so hard,” said Braff, who directed the season 1 revival pilot and who, along with Faison and Chalke, is an executive producer on the show. “We all give it everything we have. I barely sleep because I’m always thinking about how we can make it better. And so, yeah, I think there’s a lot more pressure now for us.”

Faison, whose character is now married to head nurse Carla (Judy Reyes) and has a house full of daughters, says, like Braff, he felt the game was upped even further heading into season 2 of the revival that began shooting in Vancouver in July.

“There’s more stress now to put out something good. You want the second one to be The Empire Strikes Back. You know what I mean?” said Faison. “You want the second one to be better than the first one … that’s a lot of stress, and it’s a lot of pressure. Luckily, we have great leaders involved with this because you can second guess yourself right out of confidence.”

When the second revival series premières Sept. 30, the gang at Sacred Heart Hospital will continue to face new challenges in their roles as department heads overseeing a bunch of interns and, of course, there will still be many bumps in their highly intertwined personal lives.

“I have to say that goes to Aseem Batra, who’s our showrunner and head writer. She and the team of writers did a lot of research with doctors and interviewing doctors in all different forms of the profession, and talking about the issues,” said Braff. “The insurance aspects, the concierge doctor aspects, all of these different ways into the conversation, and they’re making sure that we tell those stories.

“Scrubs is first and foremost a comedy, but we want to make sure that we’re not ignoring really relevant conversations about health care in the United States,” added Braff.

In the past, the series received support from many in the medical community who said the show was accurate in its depiction of the emotional weight of the job, the exhaustion, and the relationships between interns and doctors.

“One of the things we were the most proud of was the American Medical Association would always say Scrubs is the most medically accurate show on TV,” said Vancouver’s Chalke. “So, coming into this second round, we wanted to make sure that, OK, what are all of the new elements at play here? That was a big part of it.”

Chalke points to a season 1 revival storyline where an influencer intern’s posts pay for her medical schooling. There is also the internet, in general.

“It has changed the way that the interns are coming into it,” said Chalke who moved back to Vancouver 10 years ago after living in L.A. for 17 years. “It changes the way the patients are coming in because, as a doctor, this wasn’t something 25 years ago where the patient comes in and they’ve already Googled all of their symptoms and have Chat GPT to have a take on maybe what’s potentially wrong with them.

“I think it’s really cool, and we carry that on in this season, bringing in a couple of really real, important relevant issues that doctors are facing.”

While the internet and AI have their place in a modern hospital, there is still cause for concern over other uses. One of those concerning areas is the fueling of a loneliness epidemic that seems to have its grips on young males who lean into parasocial relationships over an in-real-life bromance like the one J.D. and Turk share.

“I cannot tell you how many times over the years people have told me, whether it’s on social media or in person, that the characters of Turk and J.D. allowed them a freedom that they didn’t know was available to them to be themselves with their best friends,” said Braff. “People are quite lonely these days … social media and the phones have made people more and more isolated. And so, we continue to strive to have the friendship be something that people can look towards and say, hey, you know, this is out there.”

Chalke adds that all the friendships portrayed in this show, while different in nature, are reminders and confirmation of the need for human connection.

“It’s in the theme song,” said Chalke about the track Superman from the band Lazlo Bane. “’I can’t do this all on my own,’ and that’s like the biggest message of the show is friendship. And that nobody can do it on their own.

“This is actually how they get through dealing with the difficulties and challenges of being in a hospital 24/7 and dealing with these incredibly hard things like losing a patient or a misdiagnosis, and then also just with the challenges of their lives,” added Chalke. “They get through it together.”

The two-episode Season 2 premiere of Scrubs airs Wed., Sept. 30 on CTV, and streams next day on Disney+ and Crave. The series moves into its regular Wednesday timeslot on CTV beginning Oct. 7.

Dgee@postmedia.com

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