Best Medicine could use a better bedside manner

Photo: Fox

Through the years, American producers have sought inspiration from across the pond, taking Britain’s best shows and molding them to fit our cultural sensibilities. With a few notable exceptions, most of these shows fall flat in their execution. There are some things that can’t translate to a new audience. In recent years, reality and game shows have become the main area of adaptation. Every once in a while, the old ways crop back up, like in Fox’s new dramedy Best Medicine.

Based on the popular UK series Doc Martin, Best Medicine follows Dr. Martin Best (Josh Charles) a surgeon with a blunt demeanor who moves to the small fishing town of Port Wenn. He struggles to acclimate to small town life thanks in part to a cavalcade of wacky townsfolk. There’s his influencer assistant Elaine (Cree), the chatty town sheriff Mark (Josh Segarra), and his own aunt (Annie Potts). You better believe there’s a love interest, schoolteacher Louisa (Abigail Spencer), ready to melt his icy heart. It’s a concept we’ve seen on TV many times before, so why does it fall flat here?

For starters, Port Wenn lacks a personality. We’ve all heard jokes about cities as their own characters before, but for a show like this, we really need to see what makes this place special. This is ostensibly about a Niles Crane-type learning to love life in a small town, but the setting feels as generic as a Hallmark movie. It doesn’t help that the cases Dr. Best handles are less than engaging.

The first episode partly revolves around a sudden increase in men gaining breasts. This male boob crisis turns out to have a simple solution, and that becomes the show’s basic formula. A medical situation causes tension before the good doctor sets it right. I get it, this isn’t House. The medical problems are meant to be window dressing for the weekly slice of small town life. In execution, they feel like an excuse to draw the show out to an hour. Maybe it all stems back to the characters?

A series like Best Medicine thrives by providing a cast of quirky characters for us to fall in love with. While the cast is more than able, the material they’re stuck with is painfully conventional. The show is full of scenes of people explaining how they’re feeling. This happens with Louisa and Mark. We learn early on that they were set to be married before Louisa called it off. What follows are multiple scenes where both characters reveal their relationship history to Dr. Best, a complete stranger. The other townsfolk feel eccentric in ways that prove to be more grating than charming. This is most obvious with Elaine, who feels like another example of older writers trying and failing to write for Gen Z.

“Small town life isn’t for everyone,” a local says early in the first episode. Best Medicine fails at making a case that it’s for anyone. The townspeople seem to live there out of osmosis. That might be more true to reality, but it certainly isn’t the show’s intention. Viewers can find some cold comfort in the series’ cozy vibe, but you’re better off watching a Hallmark movie. Better yet, go turn on the original and see what all the fuss is about.

Best Medicine airs Tuesdays on Fox. Episodes stream the next day on Hulu.

Final Verdict: Tune Out

Run Away is high on thrills but low on sense

Photo: Netflix

It’s a new year, which means Netflix is back with a new Harlan Coben adaptation. The prolific author continues to churn out new series at a pace just slightly faster than his published works. It’s a lucrative deal for both sides. Netflix loves content, and Coben remains one of the best content mills around. The New Year’s Day releases draw the most attention and bring me here today to talk about Run Away.

Based on the 2019 novel, Run Away follows Simon Greene (James Nesbitt), a father in desperate search of his daughter. As you might have guessed, Paige Greene (Ellie de Lange) is a runaway, but this is a mystery thriller, so there’s more going on here than meets the eye. After a confrontation with Simon, Paige’s boyfriend turns up dead. Both father and daughter are suspects, but this is a mystery thriller and there’s something else afoot. It’s up to Simon to solve the case before Detective Issac Fagbenle (Alfred Enoch) pins it on him.

There are plenty of moving parts in Run Away. Apart from the Greenes, there’s a mysterious private investigator (Ruth Jones) with her own case and a duo of quirky assassins (Jon Pointing and Maeve Courtier-Lilley) gunning down a list of targets. These disparate threads eventually come together as part of the show’s twist-heavy narrative. The series works double time, throwing new wrinkles at you and hoping that the fast pace keeps you from thinking about them. It’s when you try to make sense of it all that you realize the pieces don’t exactly fit together. The mystery became too much for me by the time a secret cult was revealed to be part of it.

Despite all the focus on other characters, Nesbitt carries the show as Simon. At first, it seems the show will be a two-hander with Simon and his wife Ingrid (Minnie Driver). Instead, Ingrid remains absent from much of the action, a profound misuse of Driver. That leaves Simon as our protagonist, and Nesbitt does an admirable job with some shallow characterization. He’s given slightly more depth than everyone around him, who seems to change personality depending on the most recent twist. That’s not entirely fair. Some of them are just one-note, like Simon’s other daughter Anya or Fagbenle’s partner, who he happens to be sleeping with.

Run Away is never boring, a change of pace from the last Coben offering. That doesn’t mean it’s quality either. It might keep you off your phone, but it won’t deliver anything you haven’t seen in countless other mystery thrillers. Like the airport novel it’s based on, the show will occupy your time when there’s nothing else to do. Afterward, it will quietly leave your brain, never to be thought of again.

Run Away is currently streaming on Netflix.

Final Verdict: Tune Out

The Copenhagen Test is full of twists but offers little substance

Photo: Peacock

Like many spy thrillers before it, The Copenhagen Test wants you to trust no one. Whether it’s a secret government agency, a mysterious bartender, or our protagonist, everyone is hiding something. There’s a reason so many spy stories go to that well. Besides being a great hook for the audience, it’s also natural for a secret agent to question everything. To pull it off requires a delicate balance of character, storytelling, and the right amount of narrative twists. The Copenhagen Test almost gets there.

The series follows Alexander Hale (Simu Liu) a Chinese-American intelligence analyst operating for a secret group known as The Orphanage. The organization operates as something of a watchdog for other agencies, with an upstairs full of field agents and a downstairs for the analysts. When they discover a leak, Alexander becomes the chief suspect. Eventually, we learn someone hacked Alexander’s brain. With the help of other agents, including Michelle (Melissa Barrera) that mysterious bartender, Alexander plays the role of double agent. Or is he really playing a triple agent?

The primary goal of The Copenhagen Test seems to be keeping the viewer guessing. There’s an intriguing premise here full of twists, most of them thrilling. The problem is that viewers have to be left in the dark for many of these turns to land. It works thematically to put the viewer in the mind of Alexander, but makes for a frustrating viewing experience as the series goes on. The writing’s disinterest in world-building only adds to that. This is a world where brains can get hacked into and the US intelligence community is under constant threat from unknown forces. It’s close enough to our own reality that it doesn’t require much effort, but we get none.

With the constant questions of allegiance, The Copenhagen Test requires a lead actor who can balance our sympathies and skepticism. Simu Liu is more than up to the task. Liu, who made waves in the MCU with Shang-Chi, has been waiting for an opportunity to show off those action chops again. He proves he’s a capable leading man, and his scenes with Barrera explode with chemistry. The duo’s fascinating to watch, whether they’re flirting or kicking ass.

The rest of the team helping them don’t get nearly as much to do. Brian d’Arcy James plays a pragmatic supervisor who does little more than look at screens and lecture those around him. Sinclair Daniel gets a fun role as Parker, the agent charged with processing how Alexander thinks. There’s a kinship between the two despite their inability to meet face-to-face that is engaging. The rest of the agents are even more underdeveloped.

The Copenhagen Test offers all the action and suspense you’d expect from a spy thriller, but it still feels like something is missing. Try as it might, the show can’t move past its ill-defined world and stock supporting cast. There’s enough here to make a fun movie, maybe even a franchise. As an 8-episode TV series, it feels drawn out. It turns out the big secret hiding in this show is that there isn’t much there once you get deep into it.

The Copenhagen Test is currently streaming on Peacock.

Final Verdict: Tune Out

In its last season, Stranger Things goes epic but loses something essential

Photo: Netflix

This review contains spoilers for the final season of Stranger Things.

When Stranger Things first debuted in July 2016, Netflix was only beginning to expand its original programming slate. The streaming service had its share of hits, but no one could have predicted how big this series would be. Fast-forward almost a decade later and Netflix firmly has the mantle of #1 streamer, releasing a staggering amount of TV programs a year. Through it all, Stranger Things remains their most popular show.

Through a blend of 80s nostalgia, fun characters, and an intriguing supernatural story, the series ascended to pop culture phenomenon status. It stands as one of the last remaining pieces of the American monoculture. A property that everyone has at least heard about. The finale sold out movie theaters, something unheard of for a TV program. Along the way, Stranger Things expanded its scope, including body horror, evil Russians, and putting a face on its supernatural beasts with Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower). While the plot would occasionally sag under the weight of these additions, the characters and our investment in them would carry us through. At least it used to. With this final season, Stranger Things tries out a new emotion: tedium.

The series has always been a fan of the “character explains the situation with a fun metaphor” method of exposition, but there is a limit to that charm. At least once an episode this season we get a scene of someone hatching a plan and explaining it to everyone else. Sometimes we get multiple! That’s before we get into the many scenes of characters repeating information the viewer already knows. Overall, it feels as if the talking-to-doing ratio is heavily skewed in one direction. It doesn’t help that a lot of that “doing” feels like it only incrementally shifts the plot along.

The plot, such as it is, follows our ever-expanding cast of heroes as they attempt to stop Vecna from merging our world with another. You see, the Upside Down — the spooky realm that has served as the backdrop for all horrors in this series. That place is merely a bridge between our world and another. To gain the power necessary for this, Vecna needs to capture twelve kids. Why twelve and why kids? Well, one of those whys gets explained. Like a lot of the overarching plot of the series, there’s a fair amount of “just trust us” going on. After all, no one is really here for the plot, right?

Which makes it even more baffling that so much of the season focuses on it. What keeps me coming back to this show isn’t the answer to what turned Vecna evil or why he kidnapped Will all those years ago. The characters and their relationships to one another are why I’m here. Stranger Things is one of the rare shows that continually introduces new characters and makes them just as beloved as the original cast. It’s one of the series’ greatest strengths.They even manage that this season with the debut of Dipshit Delightful Derek (Jake Connelly), a true gem in a season bereft of them. So, why does it feel like so many characters are being misused?

Photo: Netflix

Well, for starters, there’s a whopping 18 characters in the main cast alone. That’s a lot of folks to give arcs to while also focusing on wrapping up your series-long plotline. It doesn’t help that the typical Stranger Things pattern of investing time into the everyday lives of our characters can’t happen when the stakes are so high. There are too many plates spinning. It leads to a lot of neglected characters and some poor acting. Some get it worse than others. Poor Joyce (Winona Ryder) remains the worried mom for much of the season. Linda Hamilton debuts as the sinister Dr. Kay but does little more than snarl orders to her underlings. I couldn’t even tell you what character arcs, if any, Murray or Robin had.

Which is a shame because the arcs they focus on mostly land. Noah Schnapp finally gets his moment to shine as Will comes out of his shell, pun very much intended. Sadie Sink remains one of the most impressive in the cast as Max navigates the mind realm she’s trapped in. Bower finds new levels of menace in Vecna while teasing at his human side. These are all great beats wedged in between clunky exposition and quirky one-liners. The show can do better.

Series creators The Duffer Brothers, who write and direct much of this season, seem determined to craft an ending as grand as possible. This means more time in the Upside Down than ever before, which means a heavier use of CGI. This leads to the visuals feeling uncanny valley at times, but it also creates a sense of spectacle. There’s at least 4 different realms that the action is operating in by the finale. A move that can easily cause confusion, but there are enough visible differences to make it work.

As for the finale, it’s a tale of two halves. The first hour and 15 minutes feels like the sort of Marvel-ized conclusion that dominates big blockbuster movies. It even has a big CGI monster attacking our heroes. The thrills are all there, but constant fake-outs dull the emotion. Steve is going to die! No, he’ll be fine. Hopper shot Eleven! No, it’s an illusion. By the time we get to Eleven’s actual sacrifice, you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop and reveal that it was also a ruse. Smartly, the show refuses to do that, at least not outright.

The last 45 minutes showcase Stranger Things at its peak. Sure, there’s still a few lingering questions like how Hopper got to just go back to police chief after being declared legally dead, but those pesky emotions are front and center. For a few fleeting moments, the series remembers what made it so enjoyable to so many. The focus is back on the characters, and it’s better late than never. Still, an ending is more than a few exceptional moments. It’s a buildup of everything that came before it, good and bad. Which is a roundabout way of saying this season was easily the worst, one that miraculously stuck the landing despite itself. The view at the end might be great, but that doesn’t mean the bumpy ride didn’t happen.

Stranger Things is currently streaming on Netflix.

In lieu of the traditional Tune In/Out rating, below is my definitive ranking of Stranger Things seasons from best to worst.

Season Ranking: 1>3>2>4>5

Little Disasters finds nothing authentic in its mom-based mystery

Photo: Paramount+

Being a mother is tough. This basic platitude means next to nothing coming from me, a childless man. My only real frames of reference are anecdotes from baby-rearing friends and childhood stories from my mom. It might mean a little more coming from the women in Little Disasters, a motherhood mystery that often feels like a Lifetime movie by way of ITV. At least, it would if the show didn’t fall back on those same bromides.

A Paramount+ production, Little Disasters makes its debut stateside a few months after premiering in the UK. The series follows Jess (Diane Kruger) who becomes the center of a child services investigation after bringing her daughter into the hospital with a skull fracture. Her answer of what happened is dodgy, and it’s clear to the doctor that something else is going on here. The doctor, Liz (Jo Joyner) is an old friend, making things extra complicated. The two were part of a birthing class that formed the basis of their friend group. Along for the ride are the business-first Charlotte (Shelley Conn) and arty, free-spirit Mel (Emily Taaffe).

The women never really move beyond basic archetypes, which makes it hard to care about what transpires between them. Jess remains the “perfect” mother with a dark side. A role necessary to sustain the mystery, but one that leaves Kruger with little to do. In contrast, Joyner takes the brunt of the acting work. Liz burdens herself with guilt at turning in her friend while also nursing a drinking problem. The husbands are even worse, moving between pathetic (Mel’s musician husband) to potential suspect (Jess’ husband, naturally).

As for that mystery, there isn’t much to it. It turns out child abuse doesn’t make the basis for an entertaining thriller. It doesn’t help that there’s only two actual suspects in this case. Little Disasters tries to offset this by flashing back between our present events and moments in the friend group’s history. While it adds to the tension within the gang, it does very little for the case. The actual culprit, when revealed, is laughable. A twist for the sake of one. That’s before we get into the strange “talking head” scenes that seem to suggest someone is interviewing the group after the events of the series. It’s a stylistic flourish that also has no proper payoff.

Little Disasters is another in a long line of generic mystery/thrillers. The miniseries often settles for bland storytelling and basic characterization at the expense of its cast. Far from a disaster, the series barely qualifies as a mishap. It begs you to watch it while doing something else. You won’t miss much. In fact, you probably won’t remember any of it the moment the credits hit.

Little Disasters is currently streaming on Paramount+.

Final Verdict: Tune Out