Stuck between the show Scrubs was in its pilot, and the show it would become by the time its third episode came to air, “My Mentor” is unsurprisingly all over the place. Like the first episode, it’s silly and brash – and like the third episode and many past that, it begins to tug at the deeper emotions and character explorations that would define the series’ earlier seasons. But with a messy sense of its characters and a script that fails to maintain any kind of momentum from the pilot, “My Mentor” is a classic example of the grotesque second episodes of network comedy.
There is one line that really sticks out in “My Mentor”, though. When J.D. is trying to figure out how to tell a perpetual smoker he’s going to get cancer, he offers one of the show’s many goofy voiceover anecdotes:
“Sometimes, if all you have is old words, all you can do is put them together and hope they say something new.”
As ridiculous and unnecessarily complex as that sentence is, the latter part speaks to the kind of show Scrubs would become; it took the best pieces of many, many familiar shows and organized them in ways that not only felt fresh, but felt alive, and ambitious. From Good Times to ER to Sesame Street, much of Scrubs comes in homage to other shows; in reality, the only truly unique quality about the show is its niche genre of single-camera network medical comedy (it’s just Scrubs and Animal Practice, really). A lot of “My Mentor” hints towards that, but there’s a distinct lack of balance to it all, bouncing between the whimsical opening musical number to the social observations of lunch time in the hospital, then whirling around to philosophic questions about a doctor’s responsibility and healing. There’s hardly any room for “My Mentor” to breathe, something the episode’s complete lack of resolution brings to it.
Then again, that lack of resolution is arguably the episode’s most distinct trait; it again hints towards the off-kilter approach Scrubs would take to telling stories. It portrays the moment a doctor becomes separated from a patient beautifully; left with no way of truly reaching them and saving their life, we’re stuck watching them fade to black in our memory, only to return one day, on another hospital stretcher to begin the one-sided game of trying to fight death. Scrubs hints towards a darkness it would embrace in its next episode in the final moments of “My Mentor”; but when it finds its strongest thread in there – Cox’s flashy behavior covering up a troubled, damaged human being underneath – it backs away from digging into it, using Cox’s presence as the reluctant seer as a spiritual devil’s advocate to J.D., rather than a vehicle to dimensionalize Cox further outside the hospital (though that would come in droves later).
Cox’s quote about “not being able to save people from themselves” is a window into the future of Scrubs; in “My Mentor,” it’s simply another of many moments where the show is trying to establish its rhythms, and struggling in places. There’s soon-to-be-ditched characterizations (Elliot’s combative, super competitive and malicious side, and Turk being gross to Carla), an abundance of sound effects, and again, a lack of any resolution in the final moments, something Scrubs never shied away from as the show evolved. There’s still a bunch of fun scenes (The Todd,the nurse’s revenge on Elliot, Carla dressing down Turk and Elliot), but they don’t fit in with the many cutaways the episode features, and ditto to the emotional turn it suddenly takes when it begins to zero in on its titular relationship.
The climatic moments of the episode are pure examples of this imbalance; Turk standing up for Elliot feels like a development that comes out of nowhere, while Cox’s moment of guidance with J.D. stands in stark contrast as a well thought out moment between characters. J.D.’s desperation to have Cox as a mentor informs a lot about his character, as well as Cox’s reluctance to bring him within an arm’s length to express his hope for him as a doctor; the same can’t be said for Turk and Elliot, as he basically storms in and makes a speech because he wants Carla to take him on a date, and wants to show her he’s a man. Is there more to it? There’s really no relationship between Turk and Elliot to this point, so it doesn’t feel natural Turk would come to her defenses like that; rather, it plays like a carefully coordinated “speech” by Turk to finally win Carla over, a ‘risk’ that plays off, because it’s obvious from the get go that Carla and Turk are characters meant to be together.
In short, “My Mentor” is two steps forward and a step and a half back; there’s progress to be found in the episode (little details like Kelso’s two-faced approach to the nurses is a great example), but this progress is mired in Scrubs‘ attempts to really nail down its own identity. Thankfully, it wouldn’t take long for the show to find its way – we’re only two episodes away from one of the best episodes of television to air so far this century, the half hour that marked Scrubs’ arrival as appointment television for years to come.
Other thoughts/observations:
– “No, seriously… you can come over to my humble house and point out things that are cheap.”
– Ugh, that neck cracking SFX is terrible.
– High Five Count: One lonely high five this week. “The Todd will show himself some love.”
– Carla’s deadpan is terrific.
– Cox, admiring Days of our Lives: “The breasts are probably fake, but by God, those tears are real.”
– Cox’s temporary apartment in this episode is such a horrible, cheap looking set. Thankfully, the show would quickly move him into something with much more personality and room to shoot. The claustrophobic shots on the couch, along with the horrible gray color scheme, is extremely distracting.
– Random Scrubs mythology fact: Turk’s mother is a Jehovah’s Witness, something I can remember being mentioned maybe two more times throughout the series?
– Ahh, Elliot the band geek.
[Photo via NBC]
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