Appointment to see the doctor is delayed
FANS of the hit Cornwall-based TV show Doc Martin will be disappointed to learn that the much-anticipated final series will not be filmed or broadcast this year.
It had previously been announced that the ITV series, filmed in the north Cornwall village of Port Isaac, would film its tenth and final series in 2021.
With the impact of the coronavirus pandemic severely impacting the ability to make many TV programmes, including ongoing restrictions such as social distancing, Doc Martin will now film its final series next year, in 2022.
Back in October, lead actor Martin Clunes had hinted that the Covid pandemic and restrictions made the show’s filming plans uncertain. He told ITV’s This Morning: “It’s all up in the air at the moment, like the rest of the world. It’s the uncertainty, everything is very hard to plan for. It’s very hard to look into the future and see what we will be able to do next year.”
A spokesperson for the programme told WMN sister website CornwallLive: “The tenth series of Doc Martin is due to be filmed in 2022.”
Doc Martin is set to end with a final series next year, likely to be in the autumn of 2022 if the previous series are anything go to by. Filming in Port Isaac, which doubles as the fictional village of Portwenn, usually takes place during the spring and summer months.
The show, which first aired in 2004, has been filmed in odd-numbered years since series four in 2009 and will end after series ten.
Announcing that series ten will be the last, Martin Clunes and his wife Philippa Braithwaite, who is the show’s executive producer, said in
September last year: “We have loved making nine series of Doc Martin. When we launched the series in 2004, we could never have imagined how much our loyal viewers would take to the grumpy Doc like they have. The series has avid fans both in the UK and throughout the world and we are thrilled that Doc Martin has topped the ratings every time.
“However, after 16 years we now feel that the time has come to say goodbye to Portwenn. We will be making the tenth and final series in 2021 and we are very much looking forward to returning to Cornwall to film it.”
Viewers who saw the final episode of series nine will know that it ended on a cliffhanger as Doc Martin revealed he had quit as a GP after a series of farcical assessments by the regulator and the Doc’s inability to get over his phobia of blood.
Martin Clunes told ITV’s This Morning in October that the Doc could return to the stethoscope. Asked by host Eamonn Holmes if
Doc Martin had quit due to his fear of blood and if he would get back to work, he said: “Not entirely, I mean he does have that problem with blood and he did let himself down a bit, but rather than be put through an exam by the General Medical Council he just pulled the rug on it, he was fed up with it.”
Hinting at what viewers might see in series ten, he said: “But I’m guessing he’s going to get back in the saddle. But, yes he will, he will. We’ll find a way.”