The days are counting down until Scrubs returns to primetime in the 2026 TV schedule, with cast members returning to reprise their beloved roles for longtime fans and newcomers. While all the answers won't be available until the premiere arrives on ABC (and streaming with a Hulu subscription), Zach Braff opened up to CinemaBlend about how the revival will handle the unpopular final season that cut out the majority of the original cast and shifted the focus of the series.
Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Sarah Chalke attended SCAD TVfest in Atlanta ahead of the Scrubs premiere to receive the Cast Award. While that would be an unexpected award for most actors when their premiere is still weeks away, the trio appeared in nearly 200 episodes each as their Scrubs characters between across nine seasons from 2001-2010.
That said, the ninth season wasn't received terribly well by fans, with only Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and John C. McGinley returning as regulars and the story shifting to focus on med students. It honestly felt more like a different show than a final season. So, when I spoke with the actors at SCAD TVfest, I had to ask: do they consider the new 2026 version of Scrubs to be a revival, a Season 10, or a Season 9?
Sarah Chalke quickly responded that it's a "revival," and Braff followed up:
I think it's a revival, and we're calling it Season 1. It's a whole new show. I mean, it's obviously the same characters from [Seasons] 1 through 8. I think the best way that we've been framing it is that [creator] Bill Lawrence has always said that Season 9 should have been considered a spinoff. It was a different show. He wished he'd called it Scrubs: Med School.
While this isn't going to erase the ninth season of the original Scrubs, the cast isn't thinking of the new show as a Season 10, and the story is going to follow the crew from those popular first eight seasons. Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Sarah Chalke are all returning as series regulars, so viewers can count on plenty of shenanigans from J.D., Turk, and Elliot.
It remains to be seen how much we'll see of other characters like Carla and Dr. Cox. Judy Reyes (who is currently busy elsewhere on ABC as a member of the High Potential cast) and John C. McGinley are billed as recurring in the new show. A cameo or two from Season 9 could be fun, but the OG cast is back in the spotlight. Braff continued:
So we're picking up story-wise, where 1 through 8 ended, and if fans remember when J.D. sees those images projected onto the screen at the end of the finale, they're not necessarily what truly happened to him. They're what he hopes and wishes will happen to him. So our story really picks up there, however many years later. So that's kind of our entry way back in.
For better or worse, the implications of the emotional ending from the Season 8 finale, which was originally expected to be the series finale, will be where the revival picks up rather than sticking with what happened at the end of what Bill Lawrence intended to be Scrubs: Med School. A promo for the new batch of episodes reveals the familiar faces on the way, including Judy Reyes and John C. McGinley alongside the returning series regulars. Take a look:
J.D. and Turk may be past their prime when it comes to doing the Eagle and Zach Braff's character may be "Oldie" rather than "Newbie" to Dr. Cox now, but a lot of the humor seems in line with what fans loved about the show's first eight seasons. There's even a look at another returning character: The Todd himself.
Fortunately, the wait isn't too much longer to see how the revival compares to the original. Scrubs arrives on ABC on Wednesday, February 25 at 8 p.m. ET. Interestingly, it will be up against another medical TV show in that time slot, although Scrubs and Chicago Med over on NBC are very different kinds of hospital series. In the final weeks before the premiere, you can always revisit those first eight seasons streaming on Hulu.
