What Is “Best Medicine” Based On? Revisiting the Show’s International Inspiration

Jane LaCroixThu, August 6, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC

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Martin Clunes as Doc Martin; Josh Charles as Dr. Martin BestCredit: ITV; Francisco Roman/FOX -

Best Medicine, starring Josh Charles and Abigail Spencer, is an American adaptation of the British dramedy Doc Martin

The original series was inspired by the 2000 British film Saving Grace and its spinoff TV movies

Best Medicine updates the setting to a New England fishing town while keeping the central relationships and humor intact

Behind Best Medicine is a television success story that began more than 20 years ago.

The Fox medical dramedy follows the brilliant (and awkward) physician Dr. Martin Best, whose career takes a turn when he leaves behind Boston city life for a tight-knit coastal town in Maine. Starring Josh Charles and Abigail Spencer, Best Medicine puts an American spin on a story that has already won over audiences for decades overseas.

The series is based on the beloved British dramedy Doc Martin, which starred Martin Clunes as a doctor with a similar storyline. Over the course of 10 seasons, the show became an international hit, inspiring multiple adaptations around the world. But Doc Martin wasn’t an original idea either. The character first appeared years earlier in a British film.

After premiering on Fox in January 2026, season 1 was added to Netflix on Aug. 2.

From the movie that inspired Doc Martin to the changes Best Medicine made for American audiences, here’s everything to know about the inspiration behind the series.

Best Medicine is based on the British hit Doc Martin

Martin Clunes in Doc MartinCredit: ITV

Best Medicine pretty much follows the same premise as Doc Martin. In the British version, Dr. Martin is a successful vascular surgeon in London whose career comes to an abrupt end after he develops hemophobia (aka a fear of blood — not handy for someone in the medical profession). Unable to continue operating, he leaves the city behind for small-town life.

While the setting has changed in Best Medicine, the storyline, for the most part, hasn’t. Instead of focusing on life-or-death emergencies, Best Medicine uses each medical case to pull Dr. Best into the lives of his patients.

“It’s not like we’re doing House, where he figures out this crazy disease,” showrunner Liz Tuccillo told TV Insider in January 2026. “It’s that he’s trying to figure out what’s wrong with the person while having to get involved in some shenanigans that he doesn’t want to have to get involved in.”

The original story was inspired by a character from Saving Grace

Martin Clunes in Saving GraceCredit: Prime

Long before Best Medicine or Doc Martin, their main character first appeared in the 2000 British comedy Saving Grace. In the film, Clunes played Dr. Martin Bamford, a supporting character whose role proved popular enough to inspire a pair of made-for-TV movies: Doc Martin (2001) and Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie (2003).

When ITV decided to turn the concept into a full television series, the character got a reset. Dr. Martin Bamford became Dr. Martin Ellingham, and writers gave him a new backstory, including the hemophobia that forces him to leave his successful surgical career for life as a small-town doctor.

Producer Philippa Braithwaite and Clunes brought in writer Dominic Minghella to develop the show.

Best Medicine keeps the heart of Doc Martin, but changes the setting

Annie Potts, guest star, Josh Charles and Abigail Spencer in the “Port Wenn-ings and a Funeral” episode of BEST MEDICINECredit: Francisco Roman/FOX

The creative team wasn’t interested in making a shot-for-shot remake of Doc Martin. Instead, they the setting and storylines for American audiences. “This is an amazing opportunity to steal whatever we want from the original — because we were allowed to — but then also make it our own,” showrunner Tuccillo told TV Insider.

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One of the biggest changes is where the story takes place. Rather than the fictional Cornish village of Portwenn, Best Medicine moves the action to Port Wenn, Maine, where Dr. Best spent summers as a child with his Aunt Sarah (Annie Potts). The new setting still centers on a close-knit fishing community (similar to the seaside vibe of Doc Martin), but it also gives the writers room to introduce new traditions and relationships that are native to New England rather than… England.

Even with those changes, the show’s central relationships remain familiar. The slow-burning romance between Martin and schoolteacher Louisa (played by Caroline Catz in Doc Martin) is still at the heart of the American version.

“They start off very much on the wrong foot,” Spencer, who plays Best Medicine’s Louisa, told TV Insider. “She thinks that he’s rude and arrogant and not telling the whole truth and not a right fit for Port Wenn.”

The creators wanted to honor the original while making it feel distinctly American

Josh Charles (L) in the “Eyewitness Blues” episode of BEST MEDICINECredit: Francisco Roman/FOX

Executive producer Ben Silverman, who first discovered Doc Martin after his parents started watching it on PBS, said he always believed the show’s core idea could translate to American audiences.

“This underlying material of Doc Martin really connected to me and my family were fans of the show,” Silverman said during Fox FYC in 2026, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I had worked with Mark Crowdy years ago on a movie called Saving Grace, around 25 years ago, and was watching the show and saw his name; immediately called him and thought that it would work perfectly in the United States, but it required an incredible talent to adapt it and make it American.”

Charles said he intentionally avoided trying to copy Clunes’ performance and focused on creating his own version. “Watching the British show, as much as I liked it, for me, it was hard to connect,” Charles told The Daily Beastin January 2026. “I had to find my own way into my version of this character because we’re American; we’re not making a British show.”

There is some crossover between Doc Martin and Best Medicine

Martin Clunes in the “Doc Martin” episode of BEST MEDICINECredit: Francisco Roman/FOX

Clunes guest starred in season 1, episode 9 of Best Medicine, fittingly titled “Doc Martin.” Rather than reprising his original role, Clunes played Dr. Robert Best, Martin’s estranged father and an accomplished gastroenterologist whose own gruff personality gives his son a run for his money.

According to Tuccillo, the original plan was simply to ask Clunes to make a brief cameo. But the idea quickly grew. “It was sort of a gradual decision of like, ‘Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to have Martin Clunes come in for a cameo?’ and then it was like, ‘Why just a cameo?’ ” Tuccillo explained to TV Insider in February 2026. “Then the natural idea came of it being his father, and we just couldn’t believe that he said yes. We were just so beyond thrilled.”

The crossover won’t be a one-time event, either. Fox confirmed that Clunes will return as Robert in season 2, which premieres in September 2026.

There are many other global adaptations of the show

Doktor Martin: Záhada v BeskydechCredit: Mubi

Best Medicine isn’t the first series to put a local spin on Doc Martin. In fact, the British hit has inspired adaptations around the world over the past two decades.

Local versions of the series have been produced in Germany, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and the Czech Republic/Slovakia, with the original Doc Martin also airing in more than 130 countries.

While each adaptation changes the setting and supporting characters, they all keep the same basic idea at the center of the story. Some versions even put their own cultural spin on the premise, from a surgeon relocating to rural Greece to another settling into the Dutch countryside.

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