As I stare at my TV, dark with my shame, questioning the decisions I've made in my life that have led me here... I feel a deep desire to try to help my fellow humans avoid the trap into which I've tragically fallen.

Save yourself. Learn from my mistake.

I unfortunately listened to some redditors on some other posts about this topic who said season 9 was worth watching at least once, if not also during rewatches. It was not. It really was not good. I figured that some sorta-Scrubs content was better than none, right?

Wrong.

By the time I was halfway through the season, I really didn't want to keep going but I felt obligated. Now that I've finished it, I'm immensely relieved. Season 9 didn't ruin the first eight seasons for me, but it sure feels like it tried. I'm really looking forward to the new show based on what I've heard, and to get the taste of season 9 out of my mouth. Anyway, yeah, I really wanted to get this out there to whoever might look into this in the future like I did so they might come upon my post and be spared the pain of season 9. Seriously, it's precious hours of your life; please don't use it on this season.

Just some of the reasons to skip it:

1. The characters are now caricatures. Even previously layered and deep characters are now one-dimensional and uninteresting.

2. The writing... My god, the writing. There may not be a better case in television history to prove how important the writing is to a series. Almost all the writers left after season 8, and it shows. Oftentimes, when characters would speak, with furrowed brows and confusion in my mind, I'd have the thought: 'was that supposed to be funny?' It often felt like the writers thought they were hilarious, without any conception of how their 'jokes' would be received by the audience. But like the characters, the humor was terribly shallow and lame and not nearly as clever as the writers thought. To quantify it and put it in perspective, I went from maybe 1-2 laughs per minute (if not more, on average) before season 9 to 1-2 laughs per episode during season 9 (if that). Many more exasperated exhales than laughs. There was one moment where I had a big laugh during the entire season, and I don't even remember what it was and I finished the season within the past hour.

3. Sadly, the senior actors couldn't save the writing/show (through no fault of their own). JD was still JD, Cox was still Cox (albeit very shallow versions of themselves), etc, and it helped very slightly, but for the most part they could only do so much with what they were given. While these characters had grown and matured through eight seasons leading up to this point, becoming multi-faceted, fleshed-out people, when season 9 came along... JD is the girliest girl to ever girl and also extremely needy all the time, and Turk is a moron meathead surgeon, and they're gay for each other, don't forget! Dr. Cox is an ass and nothing more! Dr. Kelso is a raging sex-fiend! That's all really funny, right? So funny we'll keep making those points over and over!

There are other reasons too, but others have likely expressed them better than I could. In any case... To those on the fence about this: I could not more strongly recommend that you skip this season, even if you've never seen it. Season 8's ending is known far and wide as basically a perfect ending to the (original) series (in part because it actually was the planned ending). Some content just isn't worth consuming, even if it's tangentially connected to content you do like.

As someone who's already lost, I urge you... Save yourself. 🙏