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According to Entertainment Weekly's Ausiello Report, the new season of Scrubs will be a bit of a reinvention. Creator Bill Lawrence said that the ninth season will be an "extreme makeover" with the action shifting from the hospital to the classroom, making series regulars John C. McGinley (Dr. Perry Cox) and Donald Faison (Dr. Turk) med-school professors.
According to Lawrence, "It'll be a lot like Paper Chase as a comedy. It's going to be a different show."
And although Sacred Heart will no longer be the show's "base of operations, the students will occasionally rotate through its halls -- and bump into many of its familiar faces."
Scrubs vets Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Judy Reyes and Ken Jenkins have agreed to make guest appearances. (Neil Flynn has a costarring role as Patricia Heaton's husband in the new ABC sitcom The Middle, so his name-challenged Janitor will be MIA.)
"Med students in their first three years have to spend anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of their time at a hospital," Lawrence explains. "And that's when you'll see some of the [original cast members]. Continuity-wise, Sacred Heart will still exist with those people still working there."
But Lawrence insists "half the cast, if not 60 percent of it," will be comprised of freshmen, one of which will be more recognizable than the rest. "[ABC] is really after us to hire a big name," he reveals. "So one of them will be fairly famous."
