2009 abc TCA

When I first checked out Cougar Town, the new ABC comedy from Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence and starring Courteney Cox, I was a little concerned. The show was racier than I was expecting, and something in the tone seemed a little off. Apparently, I wasn't alone in that opinion — and apparently, Lawrence is listening. When he took the stage at TCA over the weekend, one of his main messages seemed to be that he knows he has some work to do.

"It's the first time I've ever written a show that I feel like I need outside input [to get right]," Lawrence told me after his session, adding that his staff now has more female writers than male writers. Though his wife (Christa Miller, who also stars in the show) and their friends provide him with a lot of material, he said he still has a tendency to see things from a guy's perspective — like a waxing scene he recently wrote that he said might have gone down the 40-Year-Old Virgin route if he hadn't been careful.

A number of the things that bugged me in the pilot have been reshot: He said the opening scene (which used to feature Cox and Busy Philipps's characters ogling guys at a high school football game) felt "like a cartoon" and has been changed, and he's toned down lines that make it seem like Cox's character couldn't get a date despite looking like, y'know, Courteney Cox. (Now it's more that — as a friend told him — "every single guy at our age is either gay, broken, or dating younger girls.")

To hear what Lawrence thinks of the term "cougar" and why he used it for the title, read more

"Scrubs is over. I wrote the finale." That's what Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence told me Saturday night at ABC's party at the TCA press tour. It might seem like an odd thing to say, considering that the show is very much alive and well on ABC's schedule — so Lawrence explained a little more.

"I'm writing the first Scrubs like it's a new pilot," he said, moving the setting to medical school and introducing a new cast to surround a few of our Sacred Heart regulars. He even wanted to change the name of the show (to Scrubs Med), but that didn't fly with the network, which wanted to keep the Scrubs brand.

Viewers will see plenty of familiar characters, though: John C. McGinley, Donald Faison, and Eliza Coupe are all regulars, and Zach Braff will be around for at least the show's first six episodes. Lawrence and the show's production team built a new set, shooting medical school scenes in a building across from a slightly renovated version of Sacred Heart. And when the characters head out of the classroom and into the hospital, they'll see other familiar faces (including Judy Reyes, Sarah Chalke, Ken Jenkins, and Neil Flynn — who apparently wrote his own exit from the show) whom Lawrence can hire for an episode or two at a time.

Three new major characters will also be introduced; the "new, young actors" are testing with the network this coming week for their roles. And while the tone will be similar to Scrubs (actually, Lawrence described it as Paper Chase with a hospital set), the show's focus truly will be "21-year-old students in med school starting their first day of hospital care."

Lawrence promises Scrubs 2.0 won't be "a lame, pale imitation" of what we've already seen, and that certainly makes me more curious to tune in when the show returns next season after Dancing with the Stars finishes its next run. What about you?

The last thing I was expecting from Private Practice and Grey's Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes when a bunch of reporters descended on the Private Practice set on Tuesday was a spoiler. But she must have been feeling generous toward the TCA crowd, because we didn't even have to work for our news: Dr. Miranda Bailey of Seattle Grace (the Emmy-nominated Chandra Wilson) will be guest-starring on the third episode of Private Practice's third season.

I suppose it would be too much to ask, though, for Rhimes to reveal exactly why the crossover takes place. The most we could get was that she'll be "performing a very interesting medical procedure" and "will have her own comments about what's going on" over at Oceanside Wellness. I like the sound of that second idea: I think the Southern California doctors could use a patented Bailey smackdown every now and then.

The Bailey visit wasn't the only thing I learned on the set. What follows is spoilery, but if you want to hear details of Violet's fate after that freaky season finale and what's up next for Addison's romantic life, just read more