NOW ENTERTAINMENT Jan. 4 2026 Month 00- 10, - 00, 2023
Your Weekly TV Entertainment Brought To You By Olean Times Herald & The Bradford Era
Boston doctor Martin Best (Josh Charles, “The Good Wife”) moves to a quaint coastal town in “Best Medicine,” premiering Tuesday, Jan. 6, on Fox. Josh Charles stars in “Best Medicine”
Cover Story Massachusetts man of ‘Medicine’: American network launches new take on British favorite By Dana Simpson Change is hard to navigate on the best of days, but big, sudden life adjustments have a way of bringing one’s worst fears bubbling to the surface. Unfortunately for Dr. Martin Best (Josh Charles, “The Good Wife”), the main character in Fox’s newest one-hour comedy series “Best Medicine,” the Massachusetts-based medical practitioner has a lot of fears to face. “Best Medicine” premieres Tuesday, Jan. 6, on Fox. Based on hit British series “Doc Martin,” starring Martin Clunes (“Men Behaving Badly”) as titular doctor Martin Ellingham, “Best Medicine” follows an Americanized version of the same plotline. Whereas Ellingham moved from the bustling hub of London to the fictional coastal Cornish village of Portwenn in “Doc Martin,” “Best Medicine” sees Best, a successful Boston doctor in his own right, make an unexpected move to the small seaside town where he vacationed as a child. Although the move itself is
hard enough for Best to adapt to, the good doctor has faults that makes it hard for others to accept him in return, regardless of the fact that he is their village’s only doctor. “Martin’s blunt and borderline rude bedside manner rubs the quirky, needy locals the wrong way, and he quickly alienates the town, even though he’s all they’ve got,” reads the logline per CTV, which will air the series in Canada. “Although Martin can expertly address any medical ailment or mystery in this idiosyncratic town, he’s really just desperate to be left the hell alone. Instead, he keeps getting dragged right smack into the middle of their personal chaos, feuds and fantasies.” Best is played by Josh Charles, who is known to many for his twice Emmy-nominated portrayal of Will Gardner in the CBS legal/political drama “The Good Wife” as well as for roles such as Cmdr. Gabriel Wharton in Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and teenage student Knox Overstreet in the 1989 Robin Williams (“Mrs. Doubtfire,” 1993)
classic “Dead Poets Society.” Joining Charles on screen in “Best Medicine” are Josh Segarra (“Abbott Elementary”) as the town’s sheriff, Mark Mylow; Abigail Spencer (“Mad Men”) as Louisa Glasson, a sweet, well-mannered schoolteacher and possible future love interest for Best; Annie Potts (“Young Sheldon”) as Best’s estranged Aunt Joan, “who is a strong, sturdy, lobster woman who still goes out every day on her boat, and no one better tell her to stop if they know what’s good for them” (per TVInsider); and the mononymous Cree (“Big Sky”) as Elaine, an aspiring influencer who wants nothing more than to leave her small town in the rearview mirror. There is also another, very special character in “Best Medicine,” who will certainly look familiar to viewers of the original British series. Clunes, also known as Doc Martin himself, appears in the Fox series as Best’s father and fellow doctor Robert Best. “Robert is an accomplished but headstrong gastroenterol-
ogist whose demeanor makes Martin’s prickly bedside manner seem warm by comparison,” writes The Hollywood Reporter writer Rick Porter in an Oct. 13 article. “He arrives in the New England town where Martin has moved after giving up his surgical career in Boston and puts everyone on edge, including his estranged sister and Martin’s aunt.” “But underneath his snobby, stone-cold exterior,” the character description reads, “Robert is hiding a few secrets of his own that could turn Martin’s new life upside down and force him to confront his past.” Clunes’ character in “Best Medicine” is not a far cry from that of Doc Martin, who was also portrayed as curt, brash and emotionally stunted — albeit an excellent doctor — throughout all 10 seasons of the show. Although the original ITV series ended on Christmas Day 2022 after 18 years on the air, Fox is delighted to be taking up the mantle in some way by paying homage to a beloved series abroad.
In Focus
In Focus “Industry” - Season 4 (HBO Max — Jan. 11, Season Premiere) At the top of their game and living the lives they set out to have as Pierpoint grads, Harper (Myha’la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) are drawn into a high stakes, globetrotting cat-andmouse game when a splashy Fintech darling bursts onto the London scene.
“Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials” (Netflix — Jan 15, Series Premiere) England, 1925. At a lavish country house party, a practical joke appears to have gone horribly, murderously wrong. It will be up to the unlikeliest of sleuths — the fizzingly inquisitive Lady Eileen ‘Bundle’ Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce) — to unravel a chilling plot that will change her life, cracking wide open the country house mystery.