Parents' Guide to Best Medicine

This remake of beloved and long-running British series Doc Martin is clearly reaching for amusing quirkiness but, lacking the original's comic sting, settles for well-meaning predictability. Josh Charles makes a decent-enough curmudgeon to hang Best Medicine's premise on, and the cast is stocked with character actors whose familiar faces will send viewers to IMDb to figure out just where they know them from. Part of the problem here is that the show feels Frankensteined to life from the parts of other, better shows: Dr. Best spits out instant, accurate diagnoses with scant bedside manner (See: House, The Good Doctor), while the show is set in an adorable small town (Gilmore Girls, Parks and Recreation) that's just loaded with eccentrics (Northern Exposure, Schitt's Creek, Community).

The zaniness seems a bit forced. Instead of talking like real people, characters do things like filming YouTube videos while wearing a teddy bear in a baby carrier, ripping their shirt open for a brand new doctor to show a case of gynecomastia, or reacting to a canceled wedding by turning the event into a raucous party (with a crepe station). It feels like all the actors are slightly sweaty trying to give mediocre lines more comic zip. Best Medicine is better when it allows its cast more sincerity, admitting to the issues that make them do weird stuff; viewers can expect even the crustiest of cast members to eventually display their humanity, Dr. Best included. At these moments, Best Medicine feels like a comfy old sweater: warm, cozy, nothing spectacular, but offering predictable and undemanding warmth.