Scrubs & Earl: Arrested development

I'm going away for the weekend, which means tonight's "Friday Night Lights" review may be brief, as will Sunday night's "Dexter" review (assuming I'll even have computer access on Sunday night to post it).

In the meantime, some very quick thoughts on last night's "Scrubs" and "My Name Is Earl" coming up just as soon as I doctor my birth certificate...

I really want to be enjoying this final "Scrubs" season more than I am (and the longer the strike lasts, the greater the likelihood that the show won't have a proper finale, short of Bill Lawrence doing a YouTube diary entry where he talks about what would have happened with J.D. and Elliot and what The Janitor's name was), but it continues to feel both flat and repetitive. Having the characters acknowledge that they went through the exact same problem two or three episodes back doesn't excuse the fact that they're doing it again. I appreciate the look at how hard it is to leave behind your (relatively) carefree twenties and deal with the responsibilities of your 30s (having gone through much the same not long ago), but I feel like they're beating me over the head with it, and making J.D. seem even denser than usual in the bargain.

Also beating over the head? The none-too-subtle hints that Kelso was hiding his age to avoid mandatory retirement. It's the kind of story you can actually tell in a final season (not that we'll necessarily get to see the episodes where Kelso steps down), but as with J.D.'s cluelessness about when he could and couldn't be immature, Elliot not getting this, even after she learned he was 65, frustrated me.

Also running in place, though not necessarily in a bad way, was "My Name Is Earl." Earl was talking so much about his freedom that I suspected something would trip him up, and I'm okay with that, because it feels like the better episodes of this uneven season have dealt with Earl as a convict. (This one, maybe not as much as the inter-gang love story, but I'll never complain about an opportunity to see Jason Lee breakdance.) Plus, paroling Earl would have lost us Craig T. Nelson's warden, one of the more amusing characters they've added.

I still expect them to find a way to get Earl out of prison within a few episodes, but now there's a new issue to deal with: Earl's broke. He had to run out of Lotto money eventually -- $100,000 isn't that much money, especially after taxes, and even living in that fleabag motel, it's been more than two years -- and I'm curious to see how Earl sets about being a freelance do-gooder without any money to support himself. Even if he gets back that job at the appliance store with the cast of "Rudy," is that enough to both support himself and the various expenses that come along with The List?

What did everybody else think?