Review: 'Best Medicine' has more whimsy, but it's less real than 'Doc Martin'

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It’s nothing new or extraordinary to remake a foreign TV show for a different country.“All in the Family” was modeled on the British series “Till Death Us Do Part,” as “Steptoe and Son” became “Sanford and Son.” The popular CBS sitcom “Ghosts” comes from the show you can find retitled as “U.K.Ghosts” on American Netflix.

The British mysteries “Professor T” and “Patience” (from Belgian and Franco-Belgian productions, respectively), have been successful on PBS.And there is, of course, “The Office,” which outlasted its original by many, many seasons and nearly 200 episodes.

It doesn’t always work out (“Life on Mars”; “Viva Laughlin,” from “Blackpool,” which lasted a single episode despite starring Hugh Jackman; “Payne” and “Amanda’s,” two failed stabs at adapting “Fawlty Towers”), but there’s nothing inherently wrong with the practice.The new Fox series “Best Medicine,” arriving Sunday as an advance premiere before its time slot premiere on Tuesdays, remakes the U.K.“Doc Martin,” previously adapted in France, Germany, Spain, Greece, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic.

For better or worse, I have a long, admiring relationship with the original, having signed on early and attended every season in turn — and interviewed star Martin Clunes three times across the run of the series (10 seasons from 2004 to 2022).And I am surely not alone.

Unlike with most such remakes, whose models may be relatively obscure to the local audience, “Doc Martin” has long been widely available here; you can find it currently on PBS, Acorn TV and Prime Video, among other platforms — and I recommend that you do.In “Doc Martin,” Clunes played a brilliant London surgeon who develops a blood phobia and becomes a general practitioner in the Cornwall fishing village where he spent summers as a child.He’s a terse, stiff,...