<\/p>\n
It\u2019s nothing new or extraordinary to remake a foreign TV show for a different country.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll in the Family\u201d was modeled on the British series \u201cTill Death Us Do Part,\u201d as \u201cSteptoe and Son\u201d became \u201cSanford and Son.\u201d The popular CBS sitcom \u201cGhosts\u201d<\/a> comes from the show you can find retitled as \u201cU.K. Ghosts\u201d on American Netflix. The British mysteries \u201cProfessor T\u201d and \u201cPatience\u201d (from Belgian and Franco-Belgian productions, respectively), have been successful on PBS. And there is, of course, \u201cThe Office,\u201d which outlasted its original by many, many seasons and nearly 200 episodes. It doesn\u2019t always work out (\u201cLife on Mars\u201d<\/a>; \u201cViva Laughlin,\u201d<\/a> from \u201cBlackpool,\u201d which lasted a single episode despite starring Hugh Jackman; \u201cPayne\u201d and \u201cAmanda\u2019s,\u201d two failed stabs at adapting \u201cFawlty Towers\u201d), but there\u2019s nothing inherently wrong with the practice.<\/p>\n The new Fox series \u201cBest Medicine,\u201d arriving Sunday as an advance premiere before its time slot premiere on Tuesdays, remakes the U.K. \u201cDoc Martin,\u201d<\/a> 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 \u2014 and interviewed star Martin Clunes<\/a> three times across the run of the series<\/a> (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, \u201cDoc Martin\u201d has long been widely available here; you can find it currently on PBS, Acorn TV and Prime Video, among other platforms \u2014 and I recommend that you do.<\/p>\n In \u201cDoc Martin,\u201d 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\u2019s a terse, stiff, antisocial \u2014 or, more precisely, non-social \u2014 person who doesn\u2019t stand on ceremony or suffer fools gladly, but who time and again saves the people of Portwenn from life-threatening conditions and accidents or, often, their own foolishness. A slow-developing, on-again, off-again love-and-marriage arc with schoolteacher Louisa Glasson, played by the divine Caroline Catz, made every season finale a cliffhanger.<\/p>\n Obviously, the fair thing would be to take \u201cBest Medicine\u201d as completely new. But assuming that some reading this will want to know how it follows, differs from or compares to the original \u2014 which was certainly the first thing on my mind \u2014 let us count the ways.<\/p>\n Josh Segarra, Josh Charles and Abigail Spencer in \u201cBest Medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n (Francisco Roman\/FOX)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n The names have mostly not been changed. For no clear reason \u2014 numerology, maybe? \u2014 Martin Ellingham is now Martin Best (Josh Charles); Aunt Joan is Aunt Sarah (Annie Potts), a fisherwoman instead of a farmer. Sally Tishell, the pharmacist in a neck brace, has become Sally Mylow (Clea Lewis); and distracted receptionist Elaine Denham has been rechristened Elaine Denton (Cree). Keeping their full names are Louisa Gavin (Abigail Spencer), father and son handymen Bert (John DiMaggio) and Al Large (Carter Shimp), and peace officer Mark Mylow (Josh Segarra). Portwenn has become Port Wenn, Maine. (Lobsters are once again on the menu.)<\/p>\n As in the original, Martin is hounded by dogs (no pun intended, seriously), to his displeasure; teenagers are rude to him, because they are rude teenagers. Mark Mylow is now Louisa\u2019s recently jilted ex-fiance. Liz Tuccillo, who developed the adaptation, has added a gay couple, George (Jason Veasey) and Greg (Stephen Spinella), who run the local eatery and inn and have a pet pig named Brisket (sensitive of them not to name it Back Ribs); and Glendon Ross (Patch Darragh), a well-to-do blowhard who bullied Martin in his youth. Apart from the leads Charles and Spencer, few have much to do other than strike a quirky pose, though Segarra, recently familiar as school district representative Manny Rivera on \u201cAbbott Elementary,\u201d makes a meal of Mark\u2019s every line, and Cree, who gets a lot of scenes and a personal plotline, makes a charming impression. Spencer is good company; Potts, whom I am always happy to see, is more an instrument of exposition than a full-blown character, and it feels a little unfair.<\/p>\n The first episode is modeled closely on the \u201cDoc Martin\u201d pilot, from Martin and Louisa\u2019s antagonistic meet cute \u2014 in which he offends her, leaning in unannounced to examine her eye \u2014 to the episode\u2019s main medical mystery (gynecomastia), a punch in the nose for our hero. Other details and plotlines will arrive, but there has been an attempt to give \u201cBest Medicine\u201d its own identity and original stories.<\/p>\n