Josh Charles has big, grumpy shoes to fill….
Best Medicine, the US version of the long-running Doc Martin, is now being unleashed on the Brits.
A UK review notes, “This initially feels less like a re-imagining and more like a repeat prescription. The setting may have shifted from Cornwall to Maine and Martin Clunes has made way for Josh Charles (The Good Wife), but the essentials remain intact.
“Martin – who’s been given the surname Best rather than Ellingham – is still the exasperated fish-out-of-water MD, still battling a blood phobia, and still circling a tentative romance with schoolteacher Louisa (Abigail Spencer).”
Radio Times has likened it to having a US adaptation of The Office, “which went on to carve out a distinct identity of its own. And here, there are early signs of something rather similar.
“This time, there’s a suggestion that Martin’s bluntness will be unpacked: a childhood bully resurfaces, and hints of a deeper sadness begin to emerge.
“Perhaps, then, this is a version willing to probe where its predecessor largely observed. For now, it may just require a quality the doctor himself lacks: patience.”
The series has been renewed for a second season by FOX.
It isn’t yet available in Australia, in case you were wondering….