What to say of you liked it

Cut-above-the-average comedy drama featuring Martin Clunes as a burnt-out surgeon grumpily coming to terms with life as a GP in a Cornish fishing village.

What to say of you didn’t like it

Yet another bunch of snide metropolitans attempting to take the piss out of the Cornish.

What was good about it?

• Another triumph for Martin Clunes as lost-it sawbones Martin (Doc Martin – geddit?) Ellingham, played with just the right mix of arrogance and self-doubt.

• Strong supporting cast – think of a familiar drama face (Celia Imrie, Stephanie Cole, Jeff Rawle) and they’re probably in this.

• Excellent scripts, packed with dry humour.

• The running airbag joke (Clunes getting a face full of inflatable safety feature in his Lexus). We want to see it every week.

• Lucy Punch as Elaine, the New Age Stroppy Teenager Doctor’s Receptionist from hell.

• It’s not Wild West, Simon Nye/Dawn French’s snide metropolitan piss-take of the Cornish.

What was bad about it?

• It is a bit like Wild West in places, with the Cornish portrayed as quirky yokels with general-purpose ‘oo-arr’ West Country accents.

• It doesn’t quite escape the curse of ITV by-the-numbers drama production – this week the Doc made an unlikely (but all too predictable) bond with an equally grumpy former schoolteacher (Rawle) after telling him he had cancer.