Fox has added Abigail Spencer to “Best Medicine,” its upcoming one-hour medical comedy led by Josh Charles and inspired by the long-running British hit Doc Martin. Spencer will portray Louisa Glasson, a primary-school teacher whose first encounter with Charles’ brusque surgeon, Dr. Martin Best, is anything but cordial, setting up the show’s central clash of temperament and attraction.
Announced in May and slated for the network’s 2025-26 mid-season, “Best Medicine” marks Fox’s first hour-long scripted comedy in nearly a decade, part of an effort executives say broadens the definition of network comedy beyond the half-hour format.
The series transplants Doc Martin’s fish-out-of-water premise from Cornwall to a quaint New England fishing village, where Martin’s clinical brilliance is offset by a newly revealed phobia that fuels both medical cases and character tension.
Michael Thorn, president of the Fox Television Network, praised Spencer’s casting as “the perfect counterbalance to Martin’s edge,” adding that Liz Tuccillo’s adaptation “lets the original’s eccentricity breathe in an American small-town setting.” Executive producers include Ben Silverman, Howard T. Owens, Rodney Ferrell, Tuccillo, and Doc Martin veterans Mark Crowdy and Philippa Braithwaite, ensuring a direct creative bridge between the two versions.
The U.K. source material ran ten seasons from 2004 to 2022 and became a global syndication staple, making the Boston-born Dr. Best the latest incarnation of a character whose blunt bedside manner has already been adapted in several languages. Fox’s press release positions the remake as “charmingly complicated” and wholly owned by the network, underscoring its strategy to build in-house franchises after the end of The Resident and alongside new dramas such as “Memory of a Killer.”
Production is set to begin this fall, with Spencer joining rehearsals once she wraps the second season of Hulu’s Reprisal. Development insiders say directors are scouting New England harbor towns to echo Port Isaac’s windswept visuals while giving Spencer’s Louisa a distinct American backstory rooted in the community’s struggling public school.
Casting for supporting townsfolk is underway, and Fox has yet to confirm a trailer or exact premiere date, but the network is banking on the Charles-Spencer pairing to anchor a lineup that already leans on character-first procedurals.
