A deal's a deal.

"Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence said in interviews that the decision was made to kill Nurse Roberts off at the end of the sixth season at a time when they thought that would be the show's final episode. It certainly made for a dramatic finale.

But while the final sixth-season episodes were being made, after NBC announced it was dropping the show, word got around that ABC might be interested in picking it up. It wasn't a sure thing yet, though, so Lawrence went ahead with the storyline, but reportedly told Roberts that, if the show got picked up, he'd give her a new role.

"I don't want to take away anybody's livelihood," he told "TV Guide." "It's too competitive a time out there."

Roberts backed his story up in an interview with "Variety," saying, "I'm glad to know he's a man of his word and I've still got a job."

Initially, the idea was to cast her as Nurse Roberts's twin sister, but that idea was scrapped, and instead she plays an unrelated character in whom no one, except Zach Braff's character, sees a resemblance.

That's just a bit of fourth-wall-breaking comedy on the part of the writers, allowing them to share an inside joke with their audience while acknowledging the very obvious (to viewers, anyway) fact that they have the same actress playing a different role.

"Scrubs" has many times been praised for its ability to do that sort of comedy - make jokes that bridge the gap between the fictional world of Sacred Heart and the real world of its viewers.

Have a question? E-mail us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Personal replies will not be provided.