Scrubs was a show that I came to a little late, but when I did, I was hooked. The combination of its surreal silliness, rapid-fire pacing (it wasn’t afraid to drop a joke about a decade-old Snoop Dogg rap lyric and then move right on) and shrewd, internally logical and consistent character-based comedy made it a real pleasure. Episodic arcs were clean, though hardly self-contained; most bits played out over the course of three or four shows, though if you missed one (pre-Tivo, mind you) it wasn’t a huge, deal-breaking problem. Also, while other ensembles drew more acclaim (Will & Grace, for instance), few worked as well off of one another as the cast of Scrubs.

The irreverent flipside of all these serious, sudsy hospital-set dramas like ER, the series unfolds in a state of slightly heightened reality, at the Sacred Heart Emergency Care Facility. There, young doctor J.D. (Zach Braff) works alongside his ex-girlfriend Elliot (Sarah Chalke) and best friend and college roommate, surgeon Turk (Donald Faison), as well as Turk’s nurse wife, Carla (Judy Reyes). There are all sorts of passing squabbles and intra-relationship hurdles to be negotiated, including newlywed strife, but they’re bound together as often as not against the genial penny-pinching of Dr. Kelso (Ken Jenkins) and the outlandish pranks of the nameless janitor (Neil Flynn).

Scrubs is best when it centers around J.D.’s never-ending quest for the endorsement and appreciation of his approval-withholding superior, Dr. Cox (John C. McGinley, in a role that’s tailor-fit to his idiosyncratic comic timing and persona), or when giving wide leeway for the regulars to read and react to the peculiar behavior of the aforementioned janitor, Dr. Cox’s ball-busting wife, Jordan (Christa Miller), or the pervy, uncomfortably extroverted surgeon known as “The Todd” (Robert Maschio).

The fourth season of the series, though, is probably its most uneven, though still comparatively top-notch when stacked up against the bland inoffensiveness of most sitcoms. One problem is that things seem a bit too maudlin at times. Earlier seasons kept things moving at a whipsmart pace, cycling through guest star girlfriends and boyfriends like Amy Smart, Heather Locklear, Heather Graham, Scott Foley, Chrystee Pharris, Elizabeth Banks and (gulp) Tara Reid for unattached cast members. It worked. Here, though, there’s less of that — and less narrative focus in general, too. (Guest stars include Matthew Perry, a funny, early-season bit with Julianna Margulies, Molly Shannon and the recurring Tom Cavanagh, as J.D.’s big brother.) The joke-writing still scores, but too many episodes seem to be wan reiterations of previously exhausted themes. “My Life in Four Cameras,” meanwhile, tries to futz around with the show’s single-camera format and tweak sitcom convention, imagining a scenario through different perspectives, but it does so unsuccessfully.

The show, creator Bill Lawrence and the rest of its writers and performers can certainly be forgiven for a bit of this patchiness, as for a long time the specter of cancellation hung in the air, and it wasn’t clear that NBC wanted to bring the show back — at least partially a casualty of it not being produced in-house, Braff once explained to me in an interview, but instead by Touchstone Television. The possibility of a slightly shortened fifth season, though — and, more specifically, the big syndication dollars that would follow — proved too lucrative, and eventually a compromise was hammered out.

Presented in non-anamorphic full screen, the fourth season transfer of Scrubs doesn’t quite live up to the billing of its predecessors, even if the set is attractively packaged in a yellow cardboard slipcase. There are a few issues with graininess and some inconsistency throughout — seemingly left over from initial broadcast, as I remember some of the issues from even back then — though nothing major enough to completely mar one’s enjoyment. Two audio commentaries (one by Chalke, one by Braff) are complemented by an array of deleted scenes and a healthy smattering of genial bonus featurettes. Of the latter, one on ancillary characters like “the Todd” points up the power of the joke and recurrent small screen bit player. B+ (Show) B+ (Disc)