Best Medicine Finds Its Charm in the Space Between Quirk and Heart
It’s been a long time since a TV show has charmed me.
I use that word to describe “Best Medicine,” an American TV show inspired by and semi-based on the BBC TV show “Doc Martin.” The Fox TV show stars Josh Charles as Dr. Martin Best, a brilliant surgeon in Boston who has developed a blood phobia after operating on a young girl that resembles his long-dead sister. He makes his way to Port Wenn, a small fishing town in Maine where he summered as a kid and which recently lost its longtime town doctor.
Hang on, you might be saying. That’s a pretty grim origin story for a show that is billed as a charming comedy-drama. You are correct, but most of this is merely backstory. Actually the blood phobia thing is in the original trailer I saw, a joke that landed the show on my radar. But it wasn’t until my wife began watching episode 1 (without telling me!) that I sat down to give the show a chance.
And I quickly asked myself why it took me so dang long.
Put a Stranger in a Small Town and I’m In
I love fish-out-of-water stories where a main character either returns home after years away or they are newly arrived and have to learn how to live in the setting. It’s why I enjoy Hallmark Christmas movies so much. It’s what Northern Exposure was back in the 1990s, a show that anchored my Monday nights while I was in grad school. It’s why I enjoy Back to the Future, Elf, Resident Alien, and Ted Lasso. So I was all in on the premise.
Including the quirky characters.
I’ve never seen the original BBC Doc Martin show (but have already put it on my list for this fall) but this being an American show, the quirkiness is dialed up to…let’s say an eight or nine. Occasionally veering up to eleven. I think Josh Segarra’s Sheriff Mark Mylow might be the character that stays at eleven nearly every time he’s on screen. He’s got a fondness for narrating his life as it’s happening, not unlike how the animated Batman: The Brave and the Bold TV show did Aquaman. But there’s a sincerity underneath Mark’s offbeat nature that is, well, rather charming. He smiles a lot, and I find myself smiling every time he’s on screen. I think you can draw a direct line between Mark and another law enforcement officer from TV history: Barney Fife.
When Dr. Best decides to stay in the house/office of the deceased town doctor, he also inherits Elaine (Cree; yes, that’s not a typo), the administrative assistant, who fancies herself an online influencer. Her quirk is adjacent to Mark in that she dreams big things for herself, and it manifests itself as she films herself doing various things while she’s actually supposed to be on duty. You’d think the fussy Dr. Best would happily fire her, but she knows his blood phobia—something he keeps secret from his patients—and offers to take on blood duties for the doctor in exchange that she keeps her job. She does, but it doesn’t always mean things are smooth and clear.
Annie Potts plays Dr. Best’s Aunt Sarah, a local lobster fisherwoman who serves as Martin’s direct link with his past. She regularly interacts with Greg and Jason (Stephen Spinella and Jason Veasey), a couple who run the Salty Breeze, the local seafood restaurant and bar. And one actress I instantly recognized by her voice: Didi Cohn, who famously played Frenchy in the 1978 movie, Grease.
The quirkiness doesn’t stop there because even the potential love interest possesses quirks of her own. Abigail Spencer plays Lousia, a teacher in the local school and a long-time (perhaps born and bred?) resident of Port Wenn. It is through her eyes that Dr. Best and we viewers are introduced to local traditions like the monthly baked bean supper or the blueberry festival. Spencer gives Louisa an easy warmth that reveals just how much the town means to her. I really appreciate the range of emotions that haltingly plays across Spencer’s face as she comes up against one thing after another, including her feelings for Dr. Best.
A Lot Happens Behind That Scowl
And then there is Josh Charles himself. Perhaps you’re like me and will always remember him as one of the young actors in Dead Poet’s Society, being educated in the ways of poetry by Robin Williams. I never watched The Good Wife and only sporadically saw Sports Night, so I don’t have a lot of recent roles with which to compare Charles’s performance but he plays Dr. Best in a subtle, yet nuanced way that plays out during the entire first season.
Yes, Dr. Best is brusque and irascible with his patients because he truly wants the best for them. He cannot fathom why anyone wouldn’t take his instructions to heart and get better. Much of the humor laced throughout the show is his no-nonsense delivery. And his constant scowl. He is not trying to be funny. He just lacks a certain sense of diplomacy. He can’t understand why a particular thing he said lands wrongly because, to him, it’s true.
But there’s another layer to Dr. Best. He knows, intellectually, he’s not from this town and finds many of the small-town things irritating. But as the season goes on, you see him wrestling with that part of himself, unconsciously questioning what makes him tick, wondering why he’s built the way he is. And he makes choices that show him trying things he would normally scoff at and avoid. He may instantly say no to a request, but then something happens and he gradually turns around and shows up. It also helps that his Aunt Sarah never lets him hide. It’s this growth that Charles excels at showing, nearly always with his body language, as Martin comes to terms with what it means to be a resident of Port Wenn.
Yes, the Show Looks Like a Hallmark Christmas Movie But Hear Me Out
Speaking of the setting and Port Wenn, let me go ahead and say this: Best Medicine has the look of a Hallmark Christmas movie. I say that with genuine love for those seasonal movies (have you seen this year’s list of new movies yet?). When you watch a Hallmark Christmas movie, you can tell they filmed everything in April or June. There’s no evidence of cold at all. But there’s a look to those movies, a certain something you might not be able to name but you know it when you see it.
Best Medicine pulls at the same thread. It’s part of its, well, charm. As I watched the entire first season, more than once I remarked that I was surprised a series like this was on Fox. It’s cozy and earnest in the best way possible. In fact, I could easily imagine Dr. Best being pulled out of this show and a guy who is a big-city big shot coming to Port Wenn around 17 December and the show would seamlessly transition into a Hallmark Christmas movie with all the warmth you get from those stories.
Where the Heart Sneaks In
And this is a key difference with Best Medicine. When you have a setting and a population that could exist in either world but you drop a character like Dr. Martin Best in the middle of everything, you get something different. Something richer and more nuanced. And, dare I say it, more emotionally deeper. Yes, there are a lot of surface things Dr. Best and his co-stars deal with, but this show allows these people to shed what could easily become caricatures and gives them space to breathe and become people with real, mixed emotions. There were a few moments throughout season one where I felt the feels, but the finale really made my emotions bubble up in the most genuine and hopeful way.
There’s another thread that connects recent shows I particularly enjoy including Ted Lasso, Shrinking, and now Best Medicine. It’s empathy. Sure, it may be a buzzword nowadays but that’s because it used to come pre-installed in society and now seems more like an optional upgrade. The characters in Ted Lasso and Shrinking care for each other and they go the extra mile to ensure their friends and family are seen and cared for.
The residents of Port Wenn and their new town doctor are firmly in that camp. The town cares for each other, even the ones you wish would just shut up already! The people see Elaine trying to spread her wings and become an actress and cheer. The residents rally around the Salty Breeze when Dr. Best inadvertently gets the health inspector to shut the restaurant down. This even happens on the personal level, like when Elaine helps Dr. Best with his blood phobia, when Louisa, recognizing her loneliness, tries to make other female friends, or Dr. Best’s budding relationship with a young boy not unlike himself.
Port Wenn, like Mayberry, Cicely, Alaska, or Schitt’s Creek, Canada may come across as too quirky or too pollyanna, and maybe a little too much everyone-in-everyone-else’s business. But sometimes the best television is the kind that sneaks up on you. So you should give Best Medicine a chance to settle in, get comfortable, and see if some of the town’s people can win you over with their charm.