Best Medicine Season 1 Premiere Recap

A cranky-yet-talented doctor relocates to a community heavy on townies but light on medical professionals in “Best Medicine,” a comedy that had its special premiere Sunday on Fox. (The episode will air again in its timeslot premiere on Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 8/7c.) The show is an adaptation of the British “Doc Martin” — but will American audiences take to the lighthearted, quirky tale? We want to hear your thoughts. But first, a recap of Episode 1, “Docked.”

Josh Charles (“The Good Wife,” “The Handmaid’s Tale”) stars as Dr. Martin Best, a renowned Boston heart surgeon who arrives in the small Maine town of Port Wenn in hopes of becoming the village physician. “I summered here as a child,” he explains to the small group of people interviewing him. “When this job came up, I thought it was a good time to make a change.” He seems like a lock for the job, but one of the interviewers, a woman named Louisa (played by “Timeless” alum Abigail Spencer), had an off-putting run-in with him in line at a coffee shop that morning; she inquires about his bedside manner, and though he has a ready answer, she’s not convinced he’s a good fit. She’s the only holdout when the panel votes Martin in and invites him to hang his shingle.

“Just know, this town and all the people in it are very dear to me,” she warns him afterward. “Let’s just say, I’m keeping my eye on you.” He doesn’t respond except to say that she should see an ophthalmologist about one of her eyes; she realizes that his direct stare at the coffee shop earlier was his trying to get a good look at her peeper, and she’s slightly chagrined. (Side note: It was still weird, and he looked punchable. We’re only five minutes in, and I’m already #TeamLouisa — especially given that she appears to be in a rough emotional spot, having recently bailed on her wedding to the town sheriff.)

Everyone in the town is abuzz about the thwarted nuptials. but Sheriff Mark (Josh Segarra, “The Other Two”) maintains that he’s better off as a free man, and he’s still planning to throw the reception, which will now be a celebration of singlehood. Martin cares about none of it, and he’s repeatedly irked that the townsfolk seem to want to call him “Doc Martin” despite his insistence that he’s “Dr. Best.”

At his office, Martin learns he inherited a receptionist named Elaine (Cree, “Game Shakers”), whom we learn is staunchly #TeamLouisa (hey girl hey!) and an aspiring YouTube star. He hasn’t even unpacked his suitcase before his first patient demands to be seen: a man experiencing gynecomastia (aka swollen upper chest). Martin says they’ll need to do bloodwork, and the patient is game, but the doc visibly blanches at the idea of putting needle to vein. Then he yells at the man, insults him a little, and watches as he leaves in a huff.

Later, after a mom tries to get Martin to check out her son’s scraped knee in the supermarket, the blood sends the doctor running from the store; he faints outside. Apparently he’s not out long, because no one notices or helps, and soon he’s dealing with another potential patient: a woman named Susan who asks him to call in a refill on estrogen cream so she and her husband can continue their robust sex life uninterrupted. Martin is not pleased that he can’t even buy groceries in peace, but when she mentions her husband’s name, he realizes that it’s the man with the boobs who was in his office earlier.

Assuming that the husband, Gilbert, is absorbing his wife’s estrogen cream during intercourse, Martin marches to the house — pausing along the way to watch Louisa through a window at the school where she teaches (interesting!) — and explains his theory. But that doesn’t explain why another, younger man appears in his office soon after with the same problem.

Later in Martin’s incredibly busy first day, Elaine gets a call that there’s an emergency at the dock. So he rushes down to the waterfront… only to find that his feisty aunt, Sarah (Annie Potts, “Designing Women,” “Young Sheldon”), faked the emergency because she knew he wouldn’t come see her otherwise. Sarah is a lobsterwoman who isn’t put off by her nephew’s grouchy personality, and she knows there’s some hidden reason he decided to give up life in Boston for the tiny Maine town. But he won’t say, and when a lobster clips her finger, the resulting blood sends him scurrying off the boat.

The next morning, Martin runs into Louisa at the market. Though he tries to stop her, she tells him how the wedding to Mark fell apart. She returned to Port Wenn after a bad breakup in New York nearly a decade ago. Mark was her high school sweetheart, and they got back together; they’d been together eight years when she broke it off. A little teary, she muses that you should marry the love of your life, right? Martin seems about as thrown by this as he is by all the blood he’s encountered: He stammers out a farewell, then skedaddles.

He’s in the market parking lot just in time to see Gilbert going to fish at the dock… and to be standing next to him when they both witness Susan kissing the younger gynecomastia patient on his houseboat. Yep, seems like the same tube of estrogen cream is causing both men’s complaints. Though it’s in no way his fault, everyone yells at Martin, Susan slaps him, and he decides he’s done with Port Wenn.

In his anger, he hops into his car and nearly runs his car into oncoming traffic. Turns out, Aunt Sarah is behind the wheel of the the truck he nearly hit. He lets her know he hates interacting with people — the only part of doctoring he loves is cutting bodies open and making them work better — and “I can’t even do that anymore,” he groans. When she presses, we find out that Martin froze during a surgery on an 8-year-old girl who’d been in a car accident. When he couldn’t continue, another doctor had to finish the procedure. “Well that’s understandable, Martin, isn’t it, after what happed to Rosemary?” Sarah says . But he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore. “This place won’t let you hide,” she calls as he retreats, “and that’s a good thing.”

Martin winds up at Mark’s party at the Salty Breeze, where an accidental meetup of Susan and her estrogen-creamed lovers results in the doctor taking an inadvertent punch that bloodies his nose. He runs upstairs to the bathroom, where he flails until Elaine — whom he fired earlier in the hour — finds him and cleans him up. While she’s shoving wadded-up toilet paper into his nostrils, she shares that the previous doctor let her bandage wounds and take blood, and “I’m very good at keeping secrets.”

On his way out, Martin finds an overserved Mark puking his feelings out behind the bar. “I’m never gonna get over this, Doc,” the cop cries. Martin sits with him a minute, earning him an unwanted bear hug. In between heaves, Mark adds that he hopes Martin changes his mind about leaving. And, after a wistful gaze at Louisa on his walk home and some time sitting in his room, looking at an old photo of two kids (I’m guessing Rosemary was his sister?), it seems that he does. Martin goes outside and pointedly removes the “For Rent” sign from in front of his home/office — then chases after the dog that seems to have adopted him as it runs into his house.

Now it’s your turn. Grade the premiere via the poll below, then hit the comments: Are you planning to stick with “Best Medicine”?