The camera shot then changes to the hospital, the camera is on the ground and looks up which conveys a sense of overwhelming power which is meant to convey to us what JD feels on his first day. The hospital is shown after JD says, ‘This isn’t just any day, it’s my first day…’, and we connect that statement to the hospital by what is called the Kuleshov effect.
We consider music a key element of our show, so much that writers, cast members, and producers all scour local clubs and CD racks for bands we feel should be better known," said Bill Lawrence, "Scrubs" creator and executive producer.
(From Scrubs-tv.com)
The first scene contains diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The voice over of JD (Diegetic) is quite pleasant to listen to and is likable. The voice is covered by background music (Non-Diegetic). The music is quite popular and modern, with a happy and lively tone which immediately gets us in the mood for a new show and coincides with the fact that it is JD’s first day.
Another interesting point is after he walks into the hospital he sees all the injured people walking around and general disorganization, the music slows down and then stops, this effect is used to show you that not all hospitals are nice and easy to work in. The lyrics of the song while JD is walking towards the hospital are, ‘Sometimes life can be so, unpredictable’ then when he gets in they slow down but say, ‘If I had to do it all again…’ (Then stop) This has a slight touch of dramatic irony as we know that it is going to be horrible inside and nothing like he expected. The relevance of, ‘If I had to do it all again…’ lyrics are that training is no match for the real thing and he will have to learn many new skills to get used to working on actual people. This is shown where he says, ‘you’ve done this to cadavers before, just poke it through his skin… poke it through…do it!’ (Spoken thought). An example of popular music is David Grey; the song is quite slow and suits the feeling of the character. While it is playing, he seems to be in slow motion because the people that are moving around him are faster, this effect coveys his feelings as though he feels like things are happening to quickly and he feel s detached.
The intro sequence is quite important as it introduces the show, it is 12 seconds long and has an extract of music which says, ‘I can’t do this all on my own, cause I’m no superman’ this is relevant to the show because doctors work as a team. In the intro sequence all the characters are shown quickly but merge into each other witch is a good effect to use because again it conveys a sense of a team.
The show is about doctors, and a common ideology is put forward here, that they need to study for many years and spend an excessive amount of money on their training just to start work. This is present in the show, where JD says, ‘Four years of pre-med, four years of med-school, and tones of unpaid loans…’ Another ideology is that men are usually in charge, but in ‘scrubs’ I think they have tried to change and put the men under the women. A comment made by Elliott is interesting because she says,’ all the males in my family are doctors’ this shows that she could have been forced into the profession by family pressure or just wanted to be as good as the men in her family. At one point JD and Elliott are hiding in a closet, he cancels their date and says, ‘the last thing I want to do is sleep with you now’ to which she says, ‘do me right now’ and he falls for her, and she says ‘ha’ jokingly. That shows that she is in control.
The representation in the show is obvious. The doctors are wearing blue ‘Scrubs’ with a stethoscope around their neck and pens in the pocket, sometimes carrying a clipboard. The doctors are made obvious by this and would not look correct if they were dressed any other way, some doctors also have glasses and less hair, which shows age. There is a janitor, who is dressed in an overall and carry’s tools; he is also quite old, as a younger janitor would not look right. The chief of staff in the show are dressed in white and are a lot older that the young ‘interns’ of the hospital. Their elder nature conveys power and a high position within the hospital.
There are always good and bad guys in any show, a reference is made to these, where JD after being shouted at by Dr Kelso says, ‘well if he’s he bad guy then who’s…’ at which point Dr Cox walks in and we connect the statement and the arrival of a character, which is similar to the Kuleshov effect. Dr Kelso is the head of the hospital so when he is being nice to the interns at the start you can detect a tone of falseness in his voice, and the representation of people that are too nice when you first meet them, so he has the ‘Mr. nice guy act’, and there are a few people in the audience there that would identify with that. The old people that run the hospital is a stereotype as they are all ‘supposedly’ mean and nasty people, which in this case Dr Kelso is.
The show being about doctors needs to use medical terms, which if were not correct would be seen as stupid by the more educated people of the audience. Doctors or medical students that were watching would want the terminology said to be correct. This is shown when the interns have ‘rounds’ where they look at the patients and are asked questions on them. Such as ‘what do you look for in a uremic patient’ to which the answer is infection.
People like shows about hospitals because they can be dramatic, educational and we can all identify with hospitals, as we have all been ill at one point in our lives and been to either a doctor or a hospital. Hospitals generally convey the tone of death and illness but ‘Scrubs’ is good because it brings out the happier side of hospitals and puts a humorous tone to it. We all have our own opinions of doctors but the show puts a new friendly face to the characters and can change our opinions of doctors and hospitals. The show uses many things that we can identify with, such as when JD says, ‘last night I couldn’t sleep’ as it is his first day and he is anxious.
The show deals with a range of comedy from the extremely sarcastic Dr Cox, the strangeness of Elliott Reed, and the silly childish humor of JD. This can at times be black humor, as it deals with some unpleasant sides of life. But the wide range of humor attracts a wide range of people.
As JD walks into the hospital he sees all the people then we hear (in his mind), ‘Four years of pre-med, four years of med-school, and tones of unpaid loans have made me realize on thing…’ at which point a nurse says (speech), ‘Good, could you go drop a NG tube on the patient in 234 and call the attending if the lavage is positive’ his reply is, (in his mind), ‘I don’t know jack’. That is a colloquial term that many of the younger adults would recognize, jack meaning ‘nothing’. The nurse just says all these medical terms and tries to make it sound as complicated to the viewers of the show, blinding us with science, which is overly complicated to make it sound clever.
There are many relationships that develop between the characters, even in the first episode that I am analyzing. From the start Elliott is asked by JD and Turk if she’s ‘surgical or medical’ to which she answers, ‘medical’, JD being medical, then replies (in his mind), ‘ha ha (to his friend Turk that is surgical) then … hello’, in a sexually inviting way.
The relationship that develops between the two characters (JD and Elliot) is interesting, as they are both white. There is also a relationship developing between Turk and Carla, Turk being black and Carla being Latina. These relationships are considered to be acceptable, whereas a relationship between e.g. Turk and Elliott (black and white ethnic groups) would not generally be considered acceptable by a large proportion of the population, but the relationships within your own ethnic groups are acceptable.
The fact that there is a black and a white doctor shows that the producers of the show were considering a wide range of people in the cast. The show contains a wide range of people from society; it would possibly be liked by a wider range of people. It also is not defining the jobs of doctors and surgeons to that of the white community and shows that black people are of equal intelligence. There is also a black, rather large, quite old nurse called Laverne. She fits in with the stereotype of black women being jolly and friendly and also adds to the cross cultural cast of the show.
There is subtitles at several key places in the show, one is before JD is about to go on call and say’s, ‘That night: 36 seconds before going on call’ which is quite funny as subtitles are usually of an important place and time but this is just ‘36’ seconds before going on call, and seems rather pointless.
The mise-en-scene of scrubs is particularly important because people know what hospitals look like and have their own representations of doctors. Inside the hospital is very authentic with a reception and different wards and an ‘on-call’ room. Even though the show is a comedy, the setting conveys a sense of time and place to the audience and is a fundamental part of the show. The hospital has many of today’s medical technology and conveys to us the modern setting of the show. The actors that star in scrubs have come from other comedy shows so already have a comedy status, which helps us to relate them to comedy shows, this is called performance signs. The costumes can sometimes be interesting, one minor character has a bandanna that he wears on his head, and this shows his ‘cool’ nature and gives us a sense of his character.
The cinematography in the show is quite interesting as it varies. Sometimes the close up shots of the characters enables us to have a deeper sense of feeling for them. The camera angles often put us in the doctor’s point of view and allow us to see what they are doing rather than having a distant shot, this is very effective as the show is about the lives of doctors and we all know what happens in hospitals, and the audience demands a sense of realism.
The show has many different short scenes (sometimes subtitled) such as ‘that first day again’, which cut to each other and are often related, which we connect using the Kuleshov effect. The shortness of the scenes flicks back and forward in time occasionally which gives us an idea of what the characters have learnt. Another interesting trait of the show is there are often small scenes that are imagined by the characters and look very out of place, but are very funny to watch. These are often cut to by a ‘white out’ in the previous scene, but it is easy to tell them from the real lives of the doctors in the show.
At the end of the show JD says, ‘The most important thing is that I got through my first day without looking like a complete idiot’ ‘at which point he walks into the door, the screen cuts to black and you hear him say, ‘I’m the man’. The credits then appear with music similar to the opening sequence, and have screen shots backing the text.
Scrubs is a winner of a prestigious Humanitas Prize and an Imagen Award, as well as a nominee for two Emmy Awards and a People's Choice Award in its debut season. Named a "Future Classic" by the TV Land cable network, the show is the highest-rated new comedy series to return for the 2002-03 season. "Scrubs" is produced by Touchstone Television. Bill Lawrence ("Spin City") is the executive producer and creator.
(From Scrubs-tv.com)