Desperate Housewives is going the distance – through 2013, anyway. Variety is reporting that show creator Marc Cherry has signed a deal with ABC Studios, extending Desperate Housewives through to a ninth season.
Marc Cherry will stay on as executive producer through the series’ run, but will the cast, who are only signed through season 7, stay for the duration?
So, now that scrubs is going to carry on for another season, what will the ninth season of the medical sitcom look like? For one thing, next season’s Scrubs will not take place at the Sacred Heart hospital that we’ve come to know and love - nope, the series will head to the classrom with med-school professors Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley) and Turk (and Donald Faison).
Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence tells EW.com, “It’ll be a lot like Paper Chase as a comedy. It’s going to be a different show. It’ll still be life-and-death stakes, but if the show is just Scrubs again in the hospital with a different person’s voiceover, it would be a disaster and people would be mad.”
So, yeah, taking Scrubs in a new direction is obviously the way to go, but as a die-hard fan, I’m not entirely sold on the show’s return. I loved the way they wrapped things up in the season finale and I’m not sure I want to revisit the series, even if Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke are signed on to appear in a handful of episodes.
Then again, both Bill Lawrence and Zach Braff have commented that since ABC wants to continue Scrubs, it’s keeping people in their jobs - who am I to take that away? And maybe Scrubs will retain some of its original fans as well as tap into a new crowd of faithful viewers.
And while Scrubs will mainly take place in a medical school, there will be some visits to Sacred Heart, where we’ll see the guest starring turns of Braff, Chalke, Judy Reyes and Ken Jenkins, who have all agreed to return part-time.
Bill Lawrence explained, “Med students in their first three years have to spend anywhere from 10 to 50 percent of their time at a hospital. 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.”
Lawrence also teases that ABC “is really after us to hire a big name… So one of them [med students] will be fairly famous.”
Hmmmm… any guesses?