{"id":7686,"date":"2014-02-12T14:21:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T19:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=4777"},"modified":"2014-02-12T14:21:48","modified_gmt":"2014-02-12T19:21:48","slug":"doc-martin-the-early-years-2000-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7686","title":{"rendered":"Doc Martin: The Early Years (2000-2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DocMartin1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He’s grumpy, he’s brilliant, and he gets the girl (eventually)!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In a lead-up to the release of Doc Martin: Season 6<\/strong> \u2013 already available in the U.S., and delayed for Canada until mid-March \u2013 from the old site I\u2019ve transferred reviews of the films, teleplays and seasons in which Britain\u2019s grumpiest doctor debuted and grew into a (slightly) romantic albeit still resiliently short-tempered man.<\/p>\n

The character\u2019s first appearance was in the Craig Ferguson comedy Saving Grace<\/a> <\/strong>(2000), making Ferguson the co-creator of the good doctor. Fans of the series will not recognize Doc Martin, because within the feature and the two spin-off TV movies in 2003 \u2013 Doc Martin<\/a><\/strong> and Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie<\/a><\/strong> – Martin Clunes\u2019 first version of the brilliant surgeon was as a pot-smoking, animal loving chap named Dr. Bamford.<\/p>\n

Realizing a character who likes dogs, is helpful, and tolerant of odd locals leads to an inert series, Bamford was remade as Dr. Martin Ellingham, a brilliant surgeon who never drinks, smokes, loathes all animals, and has contempt for all levels of society.<\/p>\n

In North America, Season 1<\/strong>\u00a0did the rounds on TV, plus received a pricey DVD release from Image. After a long delay, Acorn grabbed the rights, and all subsequent seasons have been released close to their U.K. dates \u2013 a good thing for fans hooked on one of Britain\u2019s most addictive imports.<\/p>\n

I watched one episode of the first season on Vision TV, realized this was a series for me (being a nascent curmudgeon), and opted to buy the U.K. release because for less than the North American set, I could get Seasons 1<\/a><\/strong> and<\/em>\u00a02<\/a><\/strong>. It was a blatantly obvious bargain.<\/p>\n

Season 3<\/a><\/strong> was also available in the U.K. prior to Acorn\u2019s distribution agreement, so you\u2019ll notice reviews of the teleplays and seasons 1-3 stem from a mix of the Australian PAL and British PAL DVDs, respectively. Also bundled within the Season 2<\/strong> review is the Xmas special On the Edge<\/a><\/strong>, which was released separately on DVD in Britain, but was assembled with Season 2<\/strong> in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Reviews of Seasons 5<\/strong> and 6<\/strong> will be up shortly, as I\u2019m in the midst of upgrading Mondomark.com into a C.V.-styled site prior to launching the revamped KQEK.com.<\/p>\n

Last note: I erred and waited too long to review Season 4<\/strong>, so there\u2019s a gap in my otherwise exhaustive assessment of Doc Martin<\/strong>. Given I tend to re-watch the entire series every 1-2 years, expect a review at some point.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com <\/strong>( Main Site<\/a> \/ Mobile Site<\/a> )<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a lead-up to the release of Doc Martin: Season 6 \u2013 already available in the U.S., and delayed for Canada until mid-March \u2013 from the old site I\u2019ve transferred reviews of the films, teleplays and seasons in which Britain\u2019s grumpiest doctor debuted, and grew into a (slightly) romantic albeit still resiliently short-tempered man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[2520,2521],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1ZY","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7929,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7686\/revisions\/7929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}