TV REVIEW: 'DOC MARTIN' & 'JEYKLL'
Two Fine Doctors; Leave it to the Brits!
(BBC) Okay, I’m recommending two great shows. Both British. One has 32 episodes (when I discovered the first one, I was so hooked that, in a week’s time, I watched all 32). The other has only six episodes to complete the story, and I am writing this just after watching the 5th. Enjoyed it so much, I’m holding off the pleasure of the conclusion for a little while…hate to see it all finish! Found both of them fishing Netflix, which is sent (by my little Roku box) to my bedroom so that I lie on comfy pillows and have my dinner on a tray while I watch. What could be more delightful and delicious...and decadent? I mean, for my demographic. Of course, at your age, you may have other ideas about what constitutes decadence.
Perhaps lying in bed gorging myself with goodies and watching TV seems a self-indulgent replacement for actual living, but hey, that’s life in the 21st century. If you’re not glued to the screen, you’re glued to your iPod or iPad or cellphone (getting your brains nuked). I’m not being critical of the new technology; I’m justifying your taking a recommendation from an “old broad.” Okay, how old?
Well, figure that when I was in high school, there was no TV, no cellphones, no Google. If you wanted to find a particular fact, you went to the library, searched though the card catalogue, went though the stacks to find your (actual) books, the librarian checked you out manually with a little rubber stamp that had a date on it. Frank Sinatra wasn’t a “classic” or “retro”; he was singing a concert at a theater on Hollywood and Vine. I heard that concert.
Frank’s not with us today. I am. And I’m trying my best to be contemp and edgy. I’ve written in other columns that I’m not mad for True Blood, but I loved Hung, (shame on you, Granny). I hate reality shows, but I loved Deadwood. I love dramas well-written by writers who create great dialogue, but I also loved Bridesmaids. What I’m saying is that, not only was I there at the beginning of I Love Lucy, but I was also there at the beginning of Entourage. So those of you out there who love solid comedy, Brit style, and solid fantasy, clever, confusing, and tantalizing, try these two. Only I warn you, if you get hooked, stock up on food. You may not, as the potato chip ad says, be able to try only one…at a time.
Start with Jekyll. The premise: Dr. Jekyll has turned up again, a direct descendant of the one Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about as Jekyll and Hyde. Married man, a couple of adorable twins, and a really hot wife...but something happens, vampire-bright-of-the-full-moon style. He shifts to another personality. Not with makeup and hairy, naily hands like the classic Spencer Tracy version. Just a subtle shift: His hairline. He’s an inch taller. The color of his eyes. But oh that “look,” that “attitude.” And he doesn’t just rage around and look scary. When he comes out of his Hyde self and returns to Jekyll, he finds he’s bitten off a man’s ear. He’s murdered, maimed, committed sexual outrages, and he doesn’t know why this is happening. Why is the problem presented (and solved, relatively so) in the next five episodes. The premise asserts that Robert Louis Stevenson didn’t write a fictional tale. He knew Dr. Jekyll and simply recorded a true story of his transformation to Mr. Hyde. This Jekyll is directly descended and looks exactly like the real older one…but that guy wasn’t married, left no kids. How? Ah, that’s the sixth episode explanation. There is also an organization, a whole conglomerate following his life for the last 40 years. Why? What’s so important about Hyde? There is a best friend who is his worst enemy. The story time-shifts, presents unsolvable problems, and is just fun to watch and muddle over, and a couple of times, you may hold your breath. I won’t say more and give spoilers because you’ll hate me for it.
It dates back to 2007. I’d love to see it continued. From what I read, it may. But as a showcase for an actor, try James Nesbitt, who plays Jekyll/Hyde in the first five episodes and Hyde in the sixth. He is such a great Hyde -- the definitely more intriguing of the duo.
Doc Martin is another two-sided personality, and if you’re into British sit-coms taking place in quaint little English countryside villages with local pubs and even quainter characters, this one is for you. I mean, mysteries like Inspector Lynley and his British upper-lower class adventures, or Inspector Morse and his pubs. (If you prefer American style in your sit-coms and horror-mysteries: “funny” one-liners that disappear like soap bubbles as soon as they’re uttered; mystery/horror with gallons of blood, dark passages where nobody thinks to turn on the lights and lots of upheld butcher knives…well, chacun a son gout. And if you don’t know what that means, you have a Google at your fingertips.)
Doctor Martin Ellington was a top-flight surgeon in London when suddenly he contracted a blood phobia. Couldn’t look at the stuff, which made it impossible to make the first cut. Blood now makes him throw up. Not good for a surgeon. He escaped to become the town doctor of a small (quaint) seaside village in Cornwall. He is formal, always wears a suit, unsmiling, totally no sense of humor, absolutely no bedside manner, brusque, rude, insulting, but the town tolerates him. Dogs love him; they follow him, and he kicks them away. He’s accepted because, when somebody needs something medical, he’s on the spot, not sensitive, not sympathetic, but right.
And if he sounds like House with a British accent, he’s better. House, although really popular, is so one-note: a confusing life-threatening symptom, a search for answer, and just at the edge of disaster, House comes through. In Doc Martin, we have a town of really quaint characters, so the series is much more textured. Top quaintness is Bert Large, played by the familiar and inimitable Ian MacNeice. Remember him as the news-crier in Rome? He of the double-double chins? He’s a self-serving yet lovable plumber and restauranteur. Doc also has a receptionist on the phone most of the time talking to boyfriends. That sounds trite, but the dialogue isn’t. There is a lady druggist who sports a neck-brace 24/7, even though Doc tells her it’s psvchosomatic. A terribly neurotic town sheriff who fantasizes he’s Doc’s best buddy without visible reason. His aunt who loves him and tolerates him. His most emotional moment with her is a restrained hug. And mostly there is Louisa. She is attracted to Doc Martin because, as the script skillfully develops, he’s a man with a major load of repressed feelings and, every once in a while, his guard comes down and the feelings burst through. In fact, they most definitely have, a couple of times. Louisa is pregnant with his child, and the whole town knows it. But when he actually tries to marry her…I can’t tell you, you have to watch that totally mad episode.
I won’t say more. If you love British comedy, you’ll love this one. Doc Martin is not “amusing.” It’s what few American sit-coms are: it’s clever. I’ve seen the final episode. It’s one of the most true-to-character finales on TV. Won’t disclose it; I still can’t get over how true to character and how surprising it is.
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