Best Medicine Review 2026 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
Dr. Martin Best (Josh Charles) is a top heart surgeon in Boston, so when he sits in front of the hiring committee in Port Wenn, they’re impressed with his credentials. He also happens to be the only applicant to replace the nonagenarian town doctor, who recently passed away.
One member of the committee has doubts: Louisa Glasson (Abigail Spencer), who teaches at the local school. She encountered Martin on line at the coffee/bait shop, and he was not only rude but kept staring at one of her eyes. Besides, Louisa isn’t exactly in the best of emotional states after she broke off her engagement to the town’s sheriff, Mark Mylow (Josh Segarra), right before their wedding — workers take apart the arch that was going to be used for the ceremony during the meeting with Martin. For his part, Martin says he was staring at her eye because he thinks she should have it checked for signs of glaucoma.
The reason why Martin — who cringes when people call him “Doc Martin” — applied for this job is that he used to summer with his aunt Sarah (Annie Potts). Another reason why he took the job is that he’s harboring a secret: He’s a surgeon who can no longer stand the sight of blood. Even a skinned knee makes him woozy.
When he gets to the doctor’s office, he encounters Elaine Denham (Cree), the old doctor’s administrative assistant. She seems to be more preoccupied with becoming an influencer than doing her job. Townspeople accost him at all hours of the day, asking them to examine them or get advice.
And his bedside manner is decidedly lacking; when his first patient busts through the door complaining he is growing breasts, Martin isn’t exactly empathetic. However, he does figure out what’s going on when the man’s wife asks him while to refill her estrogen ointment prescription, right after passing out after seeing a bloody bandage someone wanted him to look at.
The big reason why Best Medicine works is because Josh Charles is so good at playing the grumpy, people-averse Dr. Best, and through his interactions with the people of Port Wenn, we can tell that he isn’t this way just because he’s a grouch.
Martin has baggage; he’s suffered loss, and that loss informs a lot of his personality. Charles has the ability to play that person with baggage, which makes the moments he’s vulnerable, like with his aunt or when Louisa encounters him at the grocery store early one morning and talks about why she broke up with Mark, all the more dynamic. Charles has always been good at showing the pain underneath whatever exterior image his characters are projecting, and that absolutely is the case here.
Of course, Tucillo and her writing staff are setting up a romance between Martin and Louisa, despite the fact that she’ll also be giving him the business whenever he acts like a jerk towards her or someone else in Port Wenn. But the show is also going to concentrate heavily on everyone else in town, including the not-that-bright Sheriff Mark, Elaine and everyone around them.
We also know that Martin’s extensive medical knowledge will help him diagnose some interesting patients that cross his path. When a younger man comes into Martin’s office complaining that he was also growing breasts, for instance, it takes him a second to make the connection between him, the older patient, and that patient’s wife. But his knowledge of what happens when the wife has sex too soon after she applies her ointment drives the connection he makes. We’re pretty sure every episode will have cases like this; they’re not dire, but just strange enough that he’ll need all of his knowledge to solve them.
