FAMOUSLY grumpy Doctor Martin Ellingham makes a welcome return to local TV next month with the seventh and final season of Doc Martin.
The show has become one of British TV’s most successful worldwide exports, with local remakes on the small screen in Germany, France, Spain, Greece, Russia and the Czech Republic.
For the uninitiated, the show stars Martin Clunes, who created the role in the 2000 movie Saving Grace, as a brilliant but socially awkward vascular surgeon who is forced out of his successful London practice after he suddenly develops a fear of blood. Arriving in the sleepy Cornish village of Portwenn, where he spent many happy holidays as a child, Doc Martin (as the locals insist on calling him, to his annoyance) inherits a clinic in disarrary and incompetent receptionist. He then proceeds to rub almost everyone up the wrong way with his abrupt manner and his complete lack of the touchy-feelies. The preceding seasons have seen Doc Martin slowly rebuild his practice and win over the locals, while gingerly exploring romance with local lass Louisa Glasson (Caroline Catz). But after many false starts and misunderstandings, (thanks mainly to Martin’s appalling people skills), season six’s cliffhanger ending saw Louisa walking out on him. But is it for good? For season seven’s details…you’ll just have to watch the show, which premieres at 8pm on January 14th on KCET.
