Tune-In Alert: Doc Martin: The Movie Airs This Weekend on WETA!
Doc Martin: The Movie was conceived as a prequel to the 2000 film Saving Grace with Brenda Blethyn and Craig Ferguson, in which Clunes also appears. In the TV film, he plays the successful but unhappy Dr. Martin Bamford, who discovers that his wife has been sleeping with three of his friends. His world in tatters, Bamford flees London and heads for the small fishing village of Port Isaac, on the north coast of Cornwall, to try and work out the big questions in his life.
Some of that probably sounds pretty familiar, though some of the names and particulars have changed from this early version of the story to the series that we know. Obviously Martin’s last name is different, and the village he ends up in isn’t the same (though, oddly enough “Port Isaac” is the actual name of the real village that stands in for Portwenn in the seires!). This early version of Martin is also not nearly as curmudgeonly or grumpy as the man we’re used to seeing every week, those character traits were added in at Clunes’ suggestion to help sell the series to ITV.
Click through for a brief preview, airdate details for this Saturday and another (kiiiind of hilarious) promo photo.
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I get the impression that this prequel film (and actually there’s another one of these as well, called Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie, but I’m not sure when we’ll be airing that one) feels very different than show that we’re all familiar with and that the Martin character particularly seems intriguingly more emotional. I’m very curious to give this a watch this weekend and take a look at where the character that’s intrigued so many of us started out. (I wonder if I’ll like him better this way or will prefer the version we have now? Curious!)
Look at this picture! Smiling! Camraderie! And the fishing outfits! It's a whole new world!
Doc Martin: The Movie airs this Saturday night at 8:45pm. Check it out (at least so we can all talk about it after.)
