Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker in Smart PeopleSMART PEOPLE

This past Friday, a couple of friends and I were discussing the long-delayed return of new episodes of NBC's Thursday-night comedies - the unfailingly hysterical 30 Rock and The Office, the shrill, irritating My Name Is Earl, and Scrubs, a show I've occasionally endured when I was feeling too lazy to change the channel. One of my friends admitted that Scrubs has been off its game for quite a while, but said he sticks with it because, after seven seasons, he's become too invested in the actors and their characters to stop watching. I felt the same way during director Noam Murro's Smart People.