Strike Puts 'Scrubs' Finale in Jeopardy

LOS ANGELES (Nov. 3) - Nothing has been easy or conventional about the NBC comedy "Scrubs," which has been bounced around the network's schedule for most of its seven-year run and was on the verge of cancellation the past two years before landing an 11th hour renewal.

Now, the show's chance to go out on its own terms has been jeopardized by the first Writers Guild of America strike in almost 20 years, which began on Monday. The walkout could leave the final six installments of the Zach Braff hospital comedy's 18-episode last season in indefinite limbo.

"On a personal level, yeah, it would be nice to finish work on 'Scrubs' the way I wanted to," creator-executive producer Bill Lawrence said. "That it looks like it's not happening is certainly disappointing, I can't lie. But it's also not the end of the world. The last thing anybody wants to hear right now is some idiot saying, 'Hey, I worked really hard on my show, I want to end it the way I want to end it!' It's hard to care right now about any legacy."

Lawrence hadn't done much in the way of stockpiling "Scrubs" episodes in anticipation of the walkout.

Two scripts were written and ready to shoot, "and with a single-camera show, once a script is locked, you have no real rewrites," he said. That will take "Scrubs" up through Episode 12, six episodes short of the ending Lawrence had envisioned for the show.

Still, giving "Scrubs" a proper sendoff was low on Lawrence's priority list at the moment.

"What I care about more than anything right now is getting this thing settled so it's either a short strike or no strike," he said on Friday. "Right now, I fear that a lot of the writers have no real clue just how tough this is going to be. I'd imagine things will get very grim sometime after Christmas."