Everyone in our household spends their free time on their laptops these days and hardly anyone watches TV any more.
Except me.
And I am hooked on a show out of England called Doc Martin. I think it is my favourite show of all time.
Unfortunately, this is its last season I believe. They only run their series for three or four seasons over there. This is Doc Martin’s fourth season and the actor who plays the main character had to be talked into doing one more year so this will be it. (Update 2020: I was wrong. The series has just been renewed for its tenth season.)
Doc Martin is along the lines of two other favourite series of mine from the ’90s – Ballykissangel from Ireland and Monarch of the Glen from Scotland.
The shows from the British Isles use a whole different approach than American series. The characters are more fully developed, there is no reliance on snappy retorts and one-liners and pathos and laughter combine in rapid succession sometimes.
Best of all, there are no gun battles, car chases or bombs going off.
Someday I would like to visit the town in England that is the setting for Doc Martin.
The doctor who is at the centre of this show is a real crabapple, so much so, in fact, that he seems to be missing so many of the basic emotions that motivate the rest of us. And he has the social skills of a porcupine.
I like him just the way he is.
If curmudgeons gave out an annual award, he’d win it every year. And yet, there is something endearing about him. And he’s one hell of a doctor.
In the show is on Vision TV in Canada and PBS in the United States.
©2012 Jim Hagarty
