Scrubs fans demand reunion ahead of show’s 20th anniversary

With October 2nd marking 20 years since the hit hospital-based comedy series Scrubs first aired, new research reveals that fan demand for a reunion is as high as ever.

New analysis from SlotsOnlineCanada found that the cult classic show – which ran from 2001 to 2010 – has seen among the highest influx of fan support over the last year compared to other series, following an extensive Twitter and online article sentiment analysis.

The research looked at Tweets made around potential reunions for the most globally popular TV shows and assigned a positivity/negativity score to each, to help gauge which series fans most want to see make a return.

As well as seeing a high influx of positive Tweets around the concept of a reunion, Scrubs also saw a high number of ‘love’ (28%) and ‘laugh’ (32%) reactions on articles that covered a theoretical reunion.

Interestingly, the series also saw some ‘angry’ emoji reactions (22%), suggesting that not all fans were in support of the show’s return, while ‘sad’ (11%) and ‘wow’ (7%) reactions made up the rest of the online article sentiment analysis.

Looking at the Twitter analysis alone shows that Scrubs ranked fifth of all shows considered in the study when it came to seeing an influx of positive Tweets, while Buffy the Vampire Slayer received the most fan support from Twitter over the last year.

Top five shows ranked by fan interest in a reunion

Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Community
Breaking Bad
That ‘70s Show
Scrubs

It’s no surprise that Buffy took the top spot given the show’s celebrating 25 years since it left our screens in 2022, while it’ll have been 20 years since Scrubs first hit our screens on Oct 2nd this year.

This suggests that fans are more likely to express interest in a show reunion around an anniversary, particularly for long-running series that received massive support while on air.

Gayle Mitchell, Senior Editor at SlotsOnlineCanada commented on the findings, saying “We wanted to look into the concept of potential show reunions, as it’s always a gamble as to whether or not fans want to see their favourite series return or if they’d prefer them to have ended on a high.

“It’s interesting to see some of the classic shows that still evoke strong reactions from fans. Scrubs for example, despite ending over 10 years ago, clearly had a lasting impact on fans and we’d expect the clamour for a reunion to ramp up ahead of its 20th air date anniversary.”

The study follows a recent uptick in interest around a potential Buffy the Vampire Slayer reunion, given the increased fan interest around the show’s 24th anniversary (March 10th).