Scrubs - Season 8, Episode 3: "My Saving Grace"

"My Saving Grace" is Season Eight's first flop. Neither of the two stories (one where the cast tries to oust the new chief of medicine, the other where Carla sits new intern Katie down and teaches her the importance of being nice to people) is the stuff great episodes are made out of. The first comes across as a petty reaction to the disruption of regular life, and the other is another reason for Carla to act as the moral superiority in the hospital. At one point, there is a bit of promise that this segment will be disrupted, maybe even turned on its head when Katie referentially refers to Carla's "mother hen thing", but she is immediately shut back down, and we're back to the condescending pep talk.

On the upside, we see a bit more of the familiar traits of returning characters. The Janitor helps in the plot to get rid of Maddox, and has a few bright moments (although his clearly improved scene in the office does drag on) and Dr. Cox gets a mini-rant. Even there, however, the humour is undermined by sentiment, like Dr. Kelso saying, in all seriousness, "You hurt my feelings before."

I didn't realize how much I liked Dr. Kelso until he started being irrelevent. Now, he's a sad, old man sitting in the coffee shop, with none of the passion or malice that we've come to love. By exposing his humanity in previous seasons, without the position that warped him, the character doesn't have much to offer except for muffin jokes.

I don't know what is says about me that I prefer to see people on this show acting as types rather than people, or the fact that I get being frustrated at constant suggestions for improvement, but it's what I like, and this episode let me down.

Rating: 2.75