Best Medicine

Will it win awards and wind up on critics' top 10 lists come December? No. Will you see every line and plot development coming well before they happen? Yes. Will you nonetheless feel a soft spot for it, particularly if you have preexisting affection for this specific kind of small town dramedy? Quite possibly.

But if it’s not reinventing the wheel, it is building a very solid version of the wheel — one that, in the first four chapters sent to critics, strikes a winsome balance between heart and humor. Charles is excellent as Best.

Martin will doubtless have his edges sanded down over time, though hopefully later rather than sooner. For now, the contrast between Martin and his patients has a productive friction that gives Charles plenty of grouchy misanthropy to work with.

Best Medicine is softer than Doc Martin. .... But it does exactly what it sets out to do – soothe viewers’ souls with a celebration of smalltown values, of the secret goodness hidden behind even the prickliest of men and the promise that nothing for the next 42 minutes plus ads will distress us. It’s perfect rubbish and we need it very much.

On the whole, it’s cuter, milder, more cuddly (multiple vomit jokes notwithstanding), more obvious and more whimsical, but less real, less intense and less sharply written than “Doc Martin.”

Charles and Spencer find brief moments of depth. It’s not until well into the second episode that they get an extended scene together, but they hint at what this show could be with stronger writing.

Unfortunately, “Best Medicine” fails to duplicate its source material’s charm. It translates the scaffolding, but none of the wry humor or heart, giving us a hackneyed, low-stakes adaptation.

There is only one Doc Martin, and no one on the planet is even a close second. I've watched every episode, every season, more than once, I can't believe that for some unknown reason someone believed the could do it better in America. There is no substitute for "The Doc" or genuine British television. Best Medicine was a #SnoozeFest.