Doc Martin Series 4 is releasing today and it’s a show that you should care about. The show, if you’re not familiar, surrounds a London doctor named Dr. Martin Ellingham who moves into a small port town. He helps the town with its problems and they excuse that he’s a complete a-hole. He has little interaction with the town, outside of his practice, except when it comes to his love interest Louisa.
In this series Martin prepares to move back to London to become a surgeon and forget the town and its ghosts. Just when he is preparing to get the heck out dodge his love interest Louisa shows back up, but with a surprise; she’s pregnant with his child. Torn between what is proper for his career and what is proper for his lover and child. Tough gig for a straight-shooting chap. On top of this, Martin is doing his best to work out his blood phobia.
Doc Martin Series 4 can be compared to the moment in the show Fraiser where Daphne find out that Niles is in love with him. The build of that show is very comparable to the build of Doc Martin Series 4. You understand what is at stake for the doctor and every time he comes in contact with Louisa you’re shouting in your head (or at least I was), “Tell her you love her and want to be with her!” Regretfully, he almost never does. For every moment where they meet the tension between them gets thicker and thicker. The storylines around them, folks getting sick or having issues, runs clearly secondary to the main storyline; the love between Martin and Louisa. The creators know what drives the series and the drive more smoothly than ever.
The best part about this storyline is that the side stories help push it along. They aren’t necessarily needed, but they help to mount the ever-growing pressure and tension between our two lovers. It’s what makes the series work so well. Series 4 has plenty of supporting storylines, one in particular includes an old flame coming back to try to get Martin back. She’s evil as a snake and twice as deadly when she works. The tension between her, Louisa and Martin is unbelievable. The worst part is that you feel bad for her on occasion, which is wrong (but it’s true). The rest of the storylines revolve around town folk and their various illnesses and injuries (as it should).
Series 4 is probably the best of the entire series, as it builds and builds. The series prior were damn good, but not like this. Again, it’s like that season of Fraiser where it just continually builds; at the end of it all you’re happy you were there.
Shows have peaks when it comes to the entire set of series and this is certainly ‘the’ peak of Doc Martin.
The only thing missing from this DVD package is some great commentary and good featurettes. If Life on Mars gets a ton of features then so should Doc Martin. There’s too many interesting actors and storylines not to have some good documentary on how things went during filming.