Tag Archives: Doc Martin

Just what the doctors ordered

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Suranne Jones in Doctor Foster
Suranne Jones in Doctor Foster

This week’s standout drama is Doctor Foster, a five-part thriller produced by Drama Republic for BBC1 in the UK. Although a number of critics have questioned the show’s “uninspiring” title, there’s a general consensus that Mike Bartlett’s script is a sophisticated look at marital suspicion and the corrosive impact of jealousy.

The Independent said: “The first instalment of the five-parter charted Dr Foster’s (Suranne Jones) growing suspicion that her husband Simon (Bertie Carvel) was having an affair. The old green-eyed monster is a common topic in a relationship-focused show, but Mike Bartlett’s (The Town) naturalistic script, brilliantly delivered by Jones and Carvel, was close to the bone.”

The Daily Telegraph’s assessment was also upbeat: “When I saw the title of new drama Doctor Foster, I must confess my stony cold critic’s heart sank. Not another medical drama. Don’t tell me: maverick surgeon fighting the system while saving lives, yes? Thankfully, it turned out to be an edgy nail-biter that rather reminded me of the hit drama Happy Valley. This was tensely intriguing fare. It was reminiscent of Fatal Attraction from the wronged wife’s point of view or the domestic noir novels that have been all the rage since (Gillian Flynn’s) Gone Girl.”

The viewers seem to have shared the critics’ opinion. Episode one, airing at 21.00 on Wednesday night, attracted an audience of 6.1 million (29.4%), well ahead of the 4.2 million slot average.

The show had a couple of things in its favour that might explain this high figure. The first is that its lead actress, Suranne Jones, is well known to the British public through previous roles in shows such as Coronation Street and Scott & Bailey. The second is that the show followed BBC1’s mega-hit The Great British Bake-Off (which attracted in excess of nine million viewers at 20.00). Nevertheless, the first episode has probably done enough to retain a large proportion of its audience for episode two.

ITV's Doc Martin, starring Martin Clunes, has returned for a seventh season
ITV’s Doc Martin, starring Martin Clunes, has returned for a seventh season

By coincidence, the UK also saw the return of Buffalo Pictures’ long-running drama series Doc Martin this week. A gentle comedy about a high-flying London doctor who goes to live in a small village in Cornwall, the show is now in its seventh season and appears to be as popular as ever. The first episode of the new eight-part run, which comes after a two-year absence, attracted 5.9 million viewers.

While this is down on season six, it is still significantly ahead of ITV’s slot average over the past year. If there is a downside to the show, it’s that it has a pretty old audience. But Doc Martin’s return will be welcomed by the numerous networks around the world that have acquired or adapted it.

Anyone following the TV trades over the last few weeks will have noticed that RTL-owned FremantleMedia has been busy snapping up production companies around Europe. The most high-profile examples are Fontaram in France and Wildside in Italy, with the latter currently making The Young Pope for HBO, Sky and Canal+.

Fremantle will undoubtedly be hoping its new acquisitions can have the same kind of impact as Nordic indie Miso Film, an earlier acquisition that is enjoying a lot of success both in its home market and internationally. It was Miso, for example, that produced Acquitted, a Norwegian thriller that has been a massive hit across the Scandinavian market. Acquitted was also selected to open the Festival de la Fiction TV de La Rochelle, which runs from September 9 to 13 in France.

Explaining why it was chosen, Carole Villevet, head of the festival’s European selection, said: “Acquitted is an excellent series with top writing, directing and acting talents. Our goal this year is to focus on Europe and to platform European shows that have had great ratings nationwide. Acquitted is therefore a perfect choice for our prestigious opening slot.”

The early signs aren't good for Fox's Minority Report
The early signs aren’t good for Fox’s Minority Report, based on the 2002 film

Miso also produced Danish period drama 1864, which sold internationally to broadcasters such as BBC4 in the UK. And now its fledging Swedish production base is launching Modus, a thriller based on Anne Holt’s bestselling novel Fear Not for commercial broadcaster TV4. An eight-hour limited series, Modus follows psychologist and profiler Inger Johanne Vik as she investigates a series of brutal murders. FremantleMedia International will launch it at Mipcom.

In the US, the TV industry is on the cusp of its all-important fall season. Dates have now been set for shows – some of which will have crashed and burned by Christmas. It’s impossible to know at this stage which shows will live or die, but one that already has a cloud of uncertainty hanging over it is Fox’s Minority Report, which premieres on Monday September 21 at 21.00. When it was first announced, the show’s heritage as a spin-off of a Steven Spielberg film (starring Tom Cruise) created a lot of buzz. But since then there’s been a steady drip of less positive sentiment.

One issue is that the TV series turns the film’s concept on its head. In the movie, the story is about trying to stop pre-crime policing – a system under which arrests are made on the basis of clairvoyant predictions. But in the TV series, the goal seems to be to bring pre-crime policing back, a plot direction that has got the geek community chattering.

Then there was a feeling that the trailer released at San Diego Comic Con this summer wasn’t especially encouraging, with the show coming off more clichéd than conspiratorial. The tone, which should have been dark and gritty, was like a sci-fi procedural mash-up. Concerns about the direction of the series seem to be confirmed by reviewers who have seen the first episode.

Deadline was especially scathing, calling the show “predictable and surprisingly plodding. With opportunistic politicians, tacky tech, promotion-grabbing cops, air-bound assassination attempts and paranoia galore, the over-explained show tripwires itself from the beginning. Minority Report is a connect-the-dots drama masquerading as a creaky procedural. And, legacy or not, it will have a hard time breaking through even though it is one of the first shows up to the plate this fall.”

TVLine is also unsure of the show’s prospects on a network that has a reputation for not taking any prisoners: “With no Bradley Cooper-like cameo (this refers to the Limitless TV series coming up) from Tom Cruise to give this TV adaptation an implicit movie-star endorsement, Minority Report will sink or swim based on word of mouth. Given the sci-fi-er’s bumpy road to fruition (a lot of reshooting took place over summer), its future is, at best, unpredictable.”

Forbes also has a review of the first episode, which essentially accuses the TV adaptation of lacking ambition.

Fox is giving Minority Report the best possible chance by airing it directly after the new season of Gotham. So it should become clear pretty quickly whether the show stands any chance of survival.

The first episode of The X-Files reboot will premiere at Mipcom next month
The first episode of The X-Files reboot will premiere at Mipcom next month

Finally, one show certain to launch with a bang is the new-look version of The X-Files. This week Reed Midem, the organiser of Cannes-based TV market Mipcom, revealed that the first episode of the Fox reboot will be given a world premiere at the market on October 6.

“The return of this iconic series underlines the current demand for storytelling at its best,” said Laurine Garaude, director of TV at Reed Midem. “We are delighted that Fox has chosen MIipcom for the world premiere of the return of The X-Files, one of several high-profile series being showcased exclusively at Mipcom.”

The X-Files was a huge international hit the first time round and is expected to do just as well in its new form.

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The UnREAL deal

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UnREAL is a hit with the critics but its debut attracted disappointing ratings
Marti Noxon’s UnREAL is a hit with the critics but its debut attracted disappointing ratings

A+E Studios’ reality TV satire UnREAL launched on Lifetime in the US this week, and has attracted positive plaudits from critics. Time Magazine called it “dark, deft and empathetic,” while the Hollywood Reporter said the show “moves along at an engaging, entertaining pace.”

The LA Times, meanwhile, suggested UnREAL might help Lifetime shift perceptions about the kind of shows it airs: “Built on a pair of strong, nuanced, cliché-free performances by Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer this is a Lifetime series that transcends the words ‘Lifetime series.’”

Created by Marti Noxon (Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce) and Sarah Gertrude Shapiro – whose short film Sequin Raze inspired the series – UnREAL is about the seedy goings on at a hit dating show that is loosely based on The Bachelorette. It follows a young producer called Rachel (Appleby) who is willing to do anything to please her executive producer boss (Zimmer). Her main job is to manipulate contestants in order to get outrageous footage for the show, which she constantly feels guilty about.

Noxon, the senior partner in the creative team behind UnREAL, is a TV industry veteran who first came to prominence on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, for which she wrote or co-wrote 22 episodes. Since then she has written and produced for a number of projects. Looking specifically at writing credits, Noxon has penned episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, Mad Men and Glee, as well as serving as head writer on the first season of Private Practice.

The last couple of years have been particularly fruitful for Noxon. In 2013, it was announced she would write a reboot of Tomb Raider for MGM and GK Films. Then, just ahead of the debut of UnREAL on Lifetime, she launched Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce for cable channel Bravo. Centred on a self-help author whose private life doesn’t measure up to her public persona, the show was the channel’s first foray into original scripted production. Noxon wrote five of the 13 episodes, including the first and last. With a decent ratings performance and positive reviews, Girlfriends’ Guide has been renewed for a second season.

Grace and Frankie, from Marta Kauffman, will return for a second season
Grace and Frankie, from Marta Kauffman, will return for a second season

Noxon’s skill, it seems, is her ability to create storylines based around authentic female characters who attempt to juggle career progression, family, romance and friendship. In particular, she is able to run through the full emotional range, from humour to heartache. Commenting on Noxon’s early episodes of the Bravo show, the Chicago Sun-Times said they reveal a “nuanced, poignant tale, punctuated by some genuinely funny scenes.”

Having said all this, the initial audience figures for episode one of UnREAL were not good, with the show failing to pick up the ratings baton from Devious Maids, which led the programme in on its launch night.

Given the positive reaction from critics, this suggests two possibilities – first that audiences are not comfortable having the fantasy of ‘reality TV’ shattered (like meat-eaters who would rather not visit the abattoir); or, second, that the show is not a good fit for Lifetime (think back to that comment from the LA Times in the opening paragraph).

We’ll need to wait a few more episodes to develop an accurate picture of the show’s performance. But if it carries on in the same way, Lifetime will have to make a decision about whether it cut its losses or if renewing UnREAL will send out a message to audiences about where the channel actually wants to be in terms of brand profile. Internationally, the show might work well for channels that have a tougher, more satirical edge than we associate with Lifetime. Either way, UnREAL is likely to enhance Noxon’s status.

Sticking with talented female writers/producers, Marta Kauffman has been in the news this week. Kauffman will forever be known as the co-creator of Friends, arguably the most successful sitcom ever. But she has been consistently busy since that show ended way back in 2004. Her most recent project is Grace and Frankie, a sitcom for Netflix that was renewed late last month.

A US version of Doc Martin is in the works
Electus and Marta Kauffman are working on a US version of Doc Martin

This week it was announced that Kauffman is teaming up with Ben Silverman’s producer/distributor Electus to make a US version of Doc Martin, a British comedy drama about a successful London surgeon who moves to a sleepy village in Cornwall. Doc Martin is something of a phenomenon, having been remade in territories such as France, Germany and Spain and sold as a completed series worldwide. With Kauffman and Silverman on board, it now stands a real chance of cracking the US too – though the sedate UK version will probably need to be injected with amphetamines to appeal to US cable channels.

Commenting, Silverman said: “Doc Martin has charmed viewers worldwide with its excellent concept and unique style of comedy, and we’re proud to be working with Marta Kauffman. She and her team are brilliant partners.”

In one of this week’s high-profile scripted stories, Showtime’s hit series Homeland has just started production on series five. The new set of 12 episodes will be filmed in and around Berlin – making Homeland “the first American TV series to shoot entirely in Germany,” according to Showtime and Fox21 Television Studios.

Echoing our comments about Mad Men in an earlier Writers Room, it’s fascinating to see just how many people are involved in making big US dramas work. Typically, Homeland is credited to Howard Gordon and Gideon Raff, the US and Israeli executives who successfully transformed Israeli series Prisoners of War into the long-running US show. But if you look at the executive producer line-up for season five, it also includes Alex Gansa, Alexander Cary, Chip Johannessen, Meredith Stiehm, Patrick Harbinson, Lesli Linka Glatter, Avi Nir and Ran Telem.

Gansa, who previously worked on The X-Files and Dawson’s Creek, is actually a co-creator of the show alongside Gordon and Raff, and has handled a number of key episodes throughout its life. Cary, Johannessen and Stiehm have also been writing on the show since the beginning, which presumably gives the production the kind of stable creative spine that ensures longevity.

Meredith Stiehm is part of the big team behind Showtime hit Homeland
Meredith Stiehm is part of the big team behind Showtime hit Homeland

Continuing this week’s bias towards successful female writers, it’s interesting to note how Stiehm has built her career in a broadly similar way to Noxon and Kauffman, mixing writing jobs with series creator/showrunner roles. After breaking into the business on classic series like Northern Exposure and Beverly Hills 90210, she went on to create Cold Case, which ran for seven seasons on CBS. After Cold Case, she came on board Homeland but still found time to adapt Nordic drama The Bridge for FX.

Stiehm was also linked to Cocaine Cowboys, a project originally developed by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay for HBO. In the endlessly shifting world of US TV, however, that project ended up being piloted for TNT and written by Michelle Ashford, the creator/executive producer of Showtime’s Masters of Sex and a writer on HBO’s 2010 miniseries The Pacific. The latest word on Cocaine Cowboys is that it is undergoing creative surgery.

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