BY TOM GLIATTO
COMEDY
This hospital sitcom starts its sixth season with three couples expecting babies. That simple human detail gives a sweet grounding of reality to a show that otherwise tends to resemble a surreal vaudeville. The gags shoot out like pink candies from an out-of-control Pez dispenser. On the Nov. 30 premiere, young doctor JD Dorian (Zach Braff) passes out after guzzling wine: He's not coping well with the knowledge that he produced one of those babies in the course of a romance with fellow doctor Kimberly Wyatt (see box below). Then—bam!—he's spirited off to a Vegas wedding chapel by a posse of elderly gay men and winds up being squirted with goo by the Blue Man Group. At times the determination to bolt from joke to joke can feel ferociously cute. But the cast doesn't have a weak performance—I especially like that beautiful goose Sarah Chalke. And, once the babies arrive at Sacred Heart's delivery room, the diaper and breast-feeding punch lines should be, well, robust. Perhaps the best news about Scrubs' return is that it forms a new Thursday comedy block with prime time's most inventive sitcoms: My Name Is Earl (I've never liked it, but it's undeniably an original), The Office and the ratings-challenged 30 Rock. Anyone needing a laugh can look there.
