I know it’s mother’s day, and I could write some sappy, crappy story about how it’s so hard for me and that my mother died of brain cancer and mother’s day is a crappy holiday invented to make people who have parents feel good and people who lost parents want to shoot themselves in the brain when this day comes around and they are reminded of that fact… however…

I am a happy person, and this is a happy entry! ^_^

So, I’m sure this is old news by now. It seems like I always come in so late in the game. I found out about Napster about a month before they shut down the whole operation and made you have to pay for music. I was going to say something like “and i found out about Hamster dance yesterday”…. but that’s a lie. I discovered that for the first time months ago.

All kidding aside though, I really seem to find out about things pretty late.

A friend of mine showed me this shirt on threadless.com. I have to advertise profusely for them at this point because this image is in no way mine, and they also have some pretty awesome and hilarious shirts that i promptly bought like a million of. (not really, but i did buy a few shirts)

At first I didn’t understand what was going on in this image, and just thought it was a cool image, until i realized that it explains EVERYTHING. And i mean EVERYTHING. 42 is no longer the answer, this image is:

Get it?

If you still don’t, here’s a clue. … look at the shape of the yellow guy’s helmet and the colors of the other astronauts. I felt like a total idiot when I finally realized what this was meant to be.

Back in the golden age of video games, game companies had a knack for coming up with the most imaginative covers for games that had very … simple graphics.

The cover of adventure showed a huge dragon draped over a large and seemingly endless maze, while the in the game, you simple controlled a dot and his trusty arrow. The duck dragons were barely larger than the door of the black castle, let alone large enough to drape themselves over this maze that was so colorfully drawn on the cover.

It worked though, and I bought the game.

These old games also, believe it or not, along with highly imaginative box art, had stories. If you read the inside of one of the instruction manuals, you would learn that it wasn’t just dots running away from other dots in a race against time to see who could collect the most circles.

While these games did not have stories nearly as complex as a game like Final Fantasy 7, the stories were there.

When I was a kid, the first game I ever played for the atari had one of the most far fetched concepts that has ever been contrived. A yellow circle who looked like a pizza that was missing a slice had to run through countless mazes and eat pills. Brightly colored ghosts were chasing him, but what had he done to deserve this? Why did he have to take pills to render the ghosts harmless?

For a game with literally ZERO story (and i checked in the instruction manual, it’s sitting right in front of me, it really DOES have no story whatsoever), the above picture amazingly takes the nonsense that IS Pac Man and puts it into a very coherent and very plausable situation.

A failed space mission. Mission 6. One survivor let his crew members die in a selfish ploy to save himself. Their bodies may have perished, but they will never allow the lone survivor to forget the consequences of his cowardly actions. While the demons haunt him, he has found hope in the medication of a faraway planet called “Mazeland”. Suddenly the demons don’t seem so scary to him, but each maze only contains four doses of this rare medication, and it must be taken with fruit or keys. Can he make it before it’s too late!?

And interestingly enough, this scenario turns my good buddies Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde into good guys, and everyone’s favorite pill popping hero into … brace yourselves everyone……

THE ENEMY!

Before I start this entry, I guess I have to say “spoiler alert to anyone who hasn’t seen seasons 6 or 7 of scrubs”

Anyway, … ahem…

It is very seldom that a television show stays good for its entire run. Well, in america it is, at least. In other countries, when a show starts to tank, they end it, letting it die with a quiet dignity, rather than letting it go out like an embarrassment like so many american shows tend to do.

When a television show goes bad, it is known as “jumping the shark”, because of a Happy Days episode where the Fonz…. jumped a …. shark. … yeah. … So many shows jump the shark and then run for years and years after this for no other reason than to make lots and lots and lots of money because the companies figure that they could do an episode of a show where a pile of crap just talks for twenty one minutes about the government. All they have to do then is slap the name “Seinfeld” or “The Office” or “ER” onto it, and they know the public will watch it.

Where am I going with this rant? Well…

I made a very bold statement two weeks ago, right after NBC aired a Scrubs episode about Doctor Kelso being forced to leave the hospital. I said, and I quote: “Man, that episode was brilliant, and it was even brilliant post writers strike. This show has been on for seven seasons, and it’s the only show that i can think of that has NEVER jumped the shark”.

After watching tonight’s Scrubs “Series Finale” … I would like to retract that statement and say this:

WHAT THE @#$%, NBC?! WHAT THE #$%^ WERE YOU THINKING!???????!

Scrubs is a show with MASTERFUL writing. I own every season on DVD, and I’m pretty sure every damn episode i’ve ever seen has been a gold nugget dipped in a bucket of joy and rainbows.

Also, it’s a hospital show, and I generally steer away from those because of how depressing they are… …. but Scrubs has the perfect formula of funny and serious. They did it for seven glorious seasons and always seemed to get it right. Until tonight.

Tonight, they got sloppy. And even worse than that, they insulted the viewers intelligence on top of that.

The episode that was shown tonight was not a series finale. It was not even a SEASON finale. It was just some pre-strike episode that they had lying around that happened to do a little bit with JD and Elliot’s relationship so they slapped it in and said “Welp, that should be good enough”

A show like Scrubs does not deserve an ending that is “good enough”, in my opinion.

But believe me. It wasn’t even “good enough”. It was insulting, simply put.

So now that you’ve heard my opinion of this episode, let me give you the run down on WHY this episode was so insulting to anyone who is a Scrubs fan, or a fan of television … or a fan of happiness and kittens for that matter…

1. This episode was shot pre strike. All of the plots and sub plots were things that were taking place BEFORE the writers strike happened. The JD and Eliot kiss and the relationship with Keith and Elliot were not mentioned after the strike, and the episodes after the strike seemed to be moving in a wonderful and interesting direction.

2. The last two episodes that aired were about how Dr. Kelso was leaving/left. The whole tone of the show changed and it really felt like it was wrapping up. Not only was it blatantly obvious that this was shot before Kelso left the show, KELSO WAS IN THIS EPISODE AND WAS THE CHIEF OF MEDICINE STILL, AFTER THE LAST TWO EPISODES WERE SPENT TALKING ABOUT HOW HE LEFT HIS JOB AND HOW DR COX WAS THE NEW CHIEF OF MEDICINE! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Does NBC think that we’re really that stupid? That we wouldn’t notice? I’m surprised that Laverne, who died last season, wasn’t it in. Oh wait, she was. (just kidding, but that nurse who looks a lot like her and is played by the same actress was.)

I realize that these episodes are sometimes shot and shown out of order, but come on, guys! That was a REALLY big mistake. REALLY REALLY big. People get up in arms about certain continuity errors in the Office, like them messing up Meredith’s birthday in the one episode… but i mean, come on. The fact that they devoted TWO episodes to Kelso leaving and then HAD HIM IN THE NEXT EPISODE like nothing had happened is more than a little tiny error in continuity.

3. I know Scrubs has a way of having things not work out for JD and Elliot. I have to admit, as tomboyish as i am, I am a sucker for love stories. While I would have loved to see the two characters get together, I expected Scrubs to part them forever in some tragic way, but this episode didn’t even give me that. It gave me a tacked on “and everyone lived happily ever after, but not really” sort of ending that seemed like it was written by a fifth grader who needed to end a paper before the bell for recess rang. This episode offered nothing FINALEish at all.

4. They NEVER told me the @#$% janitor’s name. His name is just Janitor. FOREVER and EVER and EVER! …. ARGHGHGHGHGGHHGH!

5. Unless they make a Scrubs the Movie to make up for this travesty, Scrubs is NEVER EVER coming back, and this is the ending that we will have to live with after all of the good episodes. It’s like eating a really good food that you find out has an aftertaste that tastes like what skunks smell like! My mouth is going to taste like skunk forever after this one!

6. Final Fantasy IV - the after - Return to the Moon is a CELL PHONE GAME and the chances are very low that it will come out in america. The graphics are the same as the super nintendo Final Fantasy IV, it is a true sequel, the story focuses heavily on Rydia, my favorite character of ALL TIME, and I CANNOT PLAY THE DAMNED THING! What does this have to do with scrubs? NOTHING! All this animosity towards scrubs has made me remember how upset I am that I can’t play that game.

All things considered, Scrubs still was such an innovative show. It was the first show to have a musical episode that i DIDN’T hate. It was the first show to mix comedy and drama so masterfully. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised then, that it was the first show to jump the shark… on it’s last episode.

Edit:

I found out shortly after this that another network picked up scrubs for their final season, and that they didn’t want Scrubs to go out like this either. I guess the director or creator of the show decided that he wanted to give it a proper send off, and I really really respect that. I think it’s stupid that NBC sold this as the “final episode” … but at least I’ll get to see the series end with dignity.