The New Season (2025)

Since shows don't have a buffer of commercials between the end of one program and the start of the next, and don't end exactly on the hour or half-hour, I often find myself watching the last minute or two of any given show I've recorded on the cable box, including the closing credits. And the networks have made it a routine practice to squeeze the closing credits to a corner of the screen and run promos of upcoming shows.

I say this to say that, consequently, I've been seeing the tail end of episodes of the Scrubs revival, and promos for the Malcolm in the Middle miniseries sequel, Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair. (The subtitle comes from the closing line of the theme song, "Boss of Me" by They Might Be Giants.)

I never watched Malcolm in the Middle when it was live, so the sequel -- featuring Malcolm all growed up with a child of his own whom he desperately wishes to keep away from his dysfunctional family -- holds minimal appeal.

I did see a few episodes of Scrubs when it was live and found it somewhat amusing, but not enough to watch it regularly. On the plus side, I understand Scrubs is revered by doctors in the way Barney Miller is regarded by cops, as the most realistic TV representation of its profession.* Scrubs hangs heavily on the bromance between interns J.D. and Turk, and the actors who play them essentially play the same characters in a series of commercials for T-Mobile. But seeing the bits of Scrubs I've watched as I wait for the show I really want to see (Abbott Elementary), I can only think: "Aren't they too old for this?"

*Although I just love Barney Miller -- I can always stop what I'm doing and watch an episode, even though I've seen them all at least twice -- "realistic" isn't really the best word to describe it. After all, Barney Miller has a precinct captain who, in the early seasons, went out on calls; has detectives who don't do any investigating; has sergeants who don't supervise anyone; and has said detectives answering the kind of routine calls the uniformed officers from Adam-12 or Hill Street Blues would take on. Most unrealistic to me was that when one of their number was exposed as an mole for Internal Affairs, he dressed down the others with a self-serviing justification for his deception and the others just took it ... and went on like business as usual in subsequent episodes instead to rejecting him like the rat he proved himself to be.

"Honest" might be the better word for Barney Miller. It did show the officers in a grungy, run-down environment, had them spend a LOT of time doing paperwork (something your average cop show never bothers with), and brought on a parade of people with mundane issues and conflicts. Best of all, and this is what makes the show a cut above, in my mind, is that even though Barney Miller is one of a long line of "workplace-as-family" shows, these guys were all co-workers, but they weren't all friends (like the IAD rat).

Replies

- ClarkKent_DC > Jeff of Earth-J April 30, 2026 at 10:27pm
  
  Yes, Crash is the headless guy. He's a counterpart to the headless guy in Ghosts U.K., the British show the American version is based on. In that one, the head is still around; in the American version, I think the head is lost.
  
  I am a few weeks behind in watching new episodes of Ghost. Likewise, Elsbeth and Abbott Elementary. I do make a point of not letting Chicago Fire and Grey's Anatomy pile up.
- Philip Portelli > ClarkKent_DC April 30, 2026 at 9:51pm
  
  In the original British version of Ghosts, their headless character was a lot more interesting.
- ClarkKent_DC > Philip Portelli April 30, 2026 at 10:37pm
  
  I agree. They ran out of material quickly for the American version of the headless guy.
ClarkKent_DC May 1, 2026 at 9:00pm

Barrelling to the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, there was news a bit ago that two longtime castmembers, Kevin McKidd and Kim Raver, are leaving the show. It was painted as a mutual decision, but reading between the lines it looks like they were written out of the story.
ClarkKent_DC May 5, 2026 at 10:41pm

Since shows don't have a buffer of commercials between the end of one program and the start of the next, and don't end exactly on the hour or half-hour, I often find myself watching the last minute or two of any given show I've recorded on the cable box, including the closing credits. And the networks have made it a routine practice to squeeze the closing credits to a corner of the screen and run promos of upcoming shows.

I say this to say that, consequently, I've been seeing the tail end of episodes of the Scrubs revival, and promos for the Malcolm in the Middle miniseries sequel, Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair. (The subtitle comes from the closing line of the theme song, "Boss of Me" by They Might Be Giants.)

I never watched Malcolm in the Middle when it was live, so the sequel -- featuring Malcolm all growed up with a child of his own whom he desperately wishes to keep away from his dysfunctional family -- holds minimal appeal.

I did see a few episodes of Scrubs when it was live and found it somewhat amusing, but not enough to watch it regularly. On the plus side, I understand Scrubs is revered by doctors in the way Barney Miller is regarded by cops, as the most realistic TV representation of its profession.* Scrubs hangs heavily on the bromance between interns J.D. and Turk, and the actors who play them essentially play the same characters in a series of commercials for T-Mobile. But seeing the bits of Scrubs I've watched as I wait for the show I really want to see (Abbott Elementary), I can only think: "Aren't they too old for this?"

*Although I just love Barney Miller -- I can always stop what I'm doing and watch an episode, even though I've seen them all at least twice -- "realistic" isn't really the best word to describe it. After all, Barney Miller has a precinct captain who, in the early seasons, went out on calls; has detectives who don't do any investigating; has sergeants who don't supervise anyone; and has said detectives answering the kind of routine calls the uniformed officers from Adam-12 or Hill Street Blues would take on. Most unrealistic to me was that when one of their number was exposed as an mole for Internal Affairs, he dressed down the others with a self-serviing justification for his deception and the others just took it ... and went on like business as usual in subsequent episodes instead to rejecting him like the rat he proved himself to be.

"Honest" might be the better word for Barney Miller. It did show the officers in a grungy, run-down environment, had them spend a LOT of time doing paperwork (something your average cop show never bothers with), and brought on a parade of people with mundane issues and conflicts. Best of all, and this is what makes the show a cut above, in my mind, is that even though Barney Miller is one of a long line of "workplace-as-family" shows, these guys were all co-workers, but they weren't all friends (like the IAD rat).

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