Today, August 27th, is Sarah’s 33rd birthday! I would love to wish Sarah an amazing day today!

Sarah and her fiance Jamie Afifi are going to be having a baby! She is expected to give birth this winter.

One of our favorite TV ladies is pregnant! Sources confirm to E! News that Sarah Chalke is going to have her first baby this winter. The kiddo’s father is Chalke’s fiancé, Jamie Afifi, an entertainment lawyer.

Chalke is probably best known for playing neurotic doc Elliot Reid on Scrubs, but she also recently starred in Lifetime’s Maneater movies and did a stint as Becky No. 2 on Roseanne during the 1990s.

From E! Online

Congratulations Sarah and Jamie on this amazing news!

Many SCRUBS have been waited with baited breath to see how creator Bill Lawrence transforms the show from a hospital based comedy to a “med school” based comedy, and while at the Summer TCA Press Tour, iF caught up with him to get the skinny.

Here’s what he had to say …

“I tried to change the title of SCRUBS to SCRUBS MED,” says Lawrence. “I felt we had been writing the ending of SCRUBS for four years, because I thought it was going to be cancelled for four years. It’s a completely different show with some of the same characters. It is tonally the same. [ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson] wants to keep it the SCRUBS brand, but the show takes place in the med school. I’d say it’s like THE PAPER CHASE in a hospital setting.”

Lawrence also notes, Sacred Hearts is actually a teaching hospital, but it was something that was never really emphasized on the show.

“It’s one of the things we always fudged on SCRUBS,” says Lawrence. “We always said it was a teaching hospital, but we never really showed the teaching aspect of it. If any of you know the show, we would fudge it and have little classrooms built on set. This year we built a college campus over at Culver Studios and it looks like a Med School. We put the hospital right on campus, much like the UCLA Hospital is in Westwood and on campus. It’s back and forth with 21-year old students at Med School starting their first day of hospital care.”

Of the cast, John McGinley and Donald Faison are full time cast members with Zach Braff “there for the first six or eight episodes,” says Lawrence.

“The only intern who survived last year was Eliza Coupe who is now a regular on the show,” says Lawrence. “I really liked what she did, but 80 percent of the people are new actors. Three new young actors are testing next week for the parts.”

Another comparison Lawrence offers is the transition that happened when Kelsey Grammer moved from CHEERS to FRASIER.

“FRASIER was very smart, because they moved it to a new location, so it didn’t bother you when you didn’t see Sam and Diane,” says Lawrence. “The way we’re going to be able to get through this, is there is a Med school setting and right across the street is the hospital. When they’re in the hospital, you’ll see all of the familiar faces from the show. Whether it will be the attorney, or The Todd or Sarah Chalke or Judy Reyes or Ken Jenkins or Christa. We created a world in which the hospital still exists and they’re still there.”

And there will be an explanation for the Janitor (Neil Flynn) leaving the show as well.

“He makes up his own stuff, so he just came up with an idea of how his character would have left, because he has his own show to do,” says Lawrence.

From iF Magazine

TV shows on the brink of cancellation could take a bit of schooling from the series Scrubs. The cult comedy show has been through its share of drama in the last few years — facing cancellation, searching for a new network home, and coming back from the brink of sure death to make a few more seasons. The saga continues this fall when Scrubs will go through a complete makeover.

Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence confirmed that the show will take place in medical school instead of Sacred Heart Hospital, according to TV Squad. Zach Braff and Sarah Chalke, who play John “JD” Dorian and Elliot Reid respectively, have signed a contract for only six episodes. This upcoming season, the show will focus on Doctor Turk who will be going back to the classroom (to teach!). Viewers won’t completely lose touch with Sacred Heart Hospital, but, according to Lawrence, “It’s going to be a different show.”

Scrubs is trying to pull a Cheers without admitting that they are writing a spin-off. When Cheers ended after 11 seasons, Frasier Crane moved on to his own act in the hit-show Frasier, which also aired for 11 seasons. But it takes a layered and unexplored character to make the jump from co-star to soloist so effortlessly. And it is hard not to wonder whether Doctor Turk will pull off the transformation.

From TV.com

Playing a blushing bride on TV has wrecked SCRUBS star SARAH CHALKE’s real-life wedding plans because she can’t wear the same dream dress twice.

The actress found the perfect gown while planning a wedding for her new TV movie Maneater – and then realised she’d have to make a second choice for her own nuptials later this year (09).
She tells WENN, “I thought it would be great because my character is planning a wedding and I’m planning a wedding – there would be some sort of synchronicity, and I could look at wedding books during scenes.

“We did get to borrow these gorgeous Monique Lhuillier wedding dresses from this rack of 20 dresses to try on. I fell so madly in love with this one dress and I was like, ‘This is the one. This is the perfect dress, it’ll be so great.’ “Then they altered it and I thought, ‘Crap, this is actually the dress I want to wear for my real wedding and I can’t actually wear it for both.”

But at least Chalke has found her dress designer in Lhuillier for when she exchanges vows with lawyer Jamie Afifi.

The actress insists there’s no set date yet but the big day will be “very romantic”.

From Contact Music

Is the quirky and adorable Dr. Elliot Reid scrubbing back in for the ninth season of the hit ABC series?

The short answer? She’s still not sure. But the long answer is more fun anyway, right?

The lovely Sarah Chalke is one busy lady. She’s making the rounds promoting her new Lifetime miniseries, Maneater. She’s still a shoo-in to drop by CBS’s How I Met Your Mother. And, unfortunately, she’s also still up in the air about that offer to return to ABC’s just-renewed Scrubs.

“I actually don’t know yet what I’m going to do, but I will very soon. You guys will be the first to know,” says Sarah. “Regardless, I’m excited that the show got picked up again and it’s going to go another year.”

So there you have it. Nothing set in stone yet, but what Sarah said next about what was presumed to be the series finale of Scrubs and where she might end up next may surprise you…

A big reason Sarah might be hesitant to sign that season nine contract? Her new Lifetime miniseries, Maneater, is already being considered to go the way of Debra Messing’s The Starter Wife and be made into a series of its own.

Sarah spills, “I think the setup on Maneater kinds of lends itself to that because you’ve got the close group of girlfriends, sort of a Sex and the City.” (More on Maneater next week.)

Since the eighth-season ender of Scrubs was intended to be the last, the finale finally gave the fans the Jelliot conclusion we always wanted–and Sarah agrees. “I loved the finale. I’m a romantic at heart and I always thought J.D. and Elliot should end up together; I was really happy with how things ended up.” Ditto!

What about the series finale as a whole? “It was really cool getting to see a little bit into the future. And I loved that all of the guest stars came back. To have that day where you have a hallway of people who had guest-starred over the years, it really was a walk down memory lane.”

We know that many of you have mixed feelings about the show coming back with a new format and different characters in place of our old faves, but Sarah is just grateful that the show we all knew and loved was able to bow out at all.

“After the writers’ strike we didn’t know what was going to happen. We thought it might just end on some random, middle-of-the-season episode that would just be it for Scrubs forever,” the actress explains. “That would have been such a tough way to have it end. The fact that we got to finish up that season and do a whole eighth felt like such a gift. Bill got to really end the show the way he wanted.”

And unlike with that show about the town on a hill with one single tree–ahem, we won’t name names–Sarah is nothing but grateful for everything Scrubs has done for her. “It was the best job I’ve had. I got it two months after I moved down here, so a huge piece of my L.A. experience has been on Scrubs. We all felt that we were lucky to have that rare combination of enjoying your character and loving the writing, but also really liking the people you work with.”

Sarah’s not counting out working with some of her Scrubs costars in the future either, including The Janitor’s new ABC series, The Middle. “Neil Flynn is one of the funniest people I’ve ever worked with. I would love to guest on his show and I’m very excited for him that it got picked up.”

Yes, we admit that it sounds as if she’s feeling good about finishing up Scrubs and moving on, but we’ll just have to wait and see where Sarah ends up on our TV’s next season. One thing’s for sure, we’ll definitely be able to find her somewhere–even if it’s not in our favorite fictional hospital.

Now you’re up! What do you think of an Elliot-less Scrubs?

From E! Online

Santa’s elves are making a pit stop at ABC on their way from the North Pole.
Walt Disney Animation, in its first special for its sibling TV network, is prepping Prep and Landing, due late this year. Based on characters created by Chris Williams (Bolt) and produced by Pixar whiz John Lasseter, Prep looks at the high-tech North Pole Christmas Eve Command Center, where coordinator Magee (Scrubs’ Sarah Chalke) pairs disgruntled elf Wayne (Dave Foley) with eager young recruit Lanny (Derek Richardson) to prepare the world’s homes for Santa’s arrival.

ABC hopes to repeat the success it had with 2007′s DreamWorks special Shrek the Halls, which drew more than 20 million viewers. Like that special, Prep “works on two levels,” says ABC’s Vicki Dummer. For kids: “High-tech tools they use,” such as the gingerbread-man-shaped Naughty Detector. For parents: “A lot of inside jokes that are nods to classic Christmas specials.”

From USA Today

Meanwhile, as expected, the ninth season renewal of “Scrubs” appears to now be a lock, with star Zach Braff officially signed on to appear in at least six episodes next year.

As for “Scrubs,” momentum had grown in recent weeks to bring back the show back in a reworked fashion. Besides Braff, Sarah Chalke is on board for six segs. Other stars are locked into pilots, but could return if their shows aren’t ordered — including Donald Faison, John C. McGinley and Neil Flynn.

Creator Bill Lawrence is said to be kicking around various ideas to evolve the show — such as following one of the characters as they move to a different hospital or medical school.

“Scrubs” aired its season finale last week — but the episode’s look and feel was that of a series ending its run. The episode even ended with shots of the “Scrubs” cast and crew hugging behind the camera after they performed their final scenes.

From Variety