Apparently, the various cast members for "Doc Martin" were off doing their own things and the folks who made the show were a bit ambivalent about making more episodes. Because of that, nearly a year after the last episode, they made this movie-length episode and no more for a while.
The episode begins with a crazed local, the Colonel, in a tizzy about some chough birds (some sort of birds that nest among the cliffs-- look 'em up on Wikipedia if you want to know more). The problem is that he's running around with a loaded gun--a gun which causes some much trouble throughout the episode. Folks get shot, nearly shot and the chough birds get the worst of it in the end. Other plots which are sprinkled throughout the show include a crazy man who becomes progressively more delusional and dangerous, Pauline deciding to go to college, a baker who is potentially passing about a gastrointestinal disorder and the return of Louisa's scum-bag father. See the show to see how all these come together in the incredibly strange finale.
Overall, this is a very good installment of the show. As a trained psychotherapist, I was a bit dubious of the Bipolar Disorder (as he was far more delusional than a typical case of the disorder--and seemed more like he had a Schizoaffective disorder, since he seemed like he had Bipolar Disorder AND Schizophrenia). However, this is a minor technical quibble. One more more obvious problem is the sloppiness of the hostage portion--as again and again, everyone made it EASY for a clearly insane man to get a hold of guns and explosives! Still, I could ignore this a bit as the rest was quite entertaining.
The episode begins with a crazed local, the Colonel, in a tizzy about some chough birds (some sort of birds that nest among the cliffs-- look 'em up on Wikipedia if you want to know more). The problem is that he's running around with a loaded gun--a gun which causes some much trouble throughout the episode. Folks get shot, nearly shot and the chough birds get the worst of it in the end. Other plots which are sprinkled throughout the show include a crazy man who becomes progressively more delusional and dangerous, Pauline deciding to go to college, a baker who is potentially passing about a gastrointestinal disorder and the return of Louisa's scum-bag father. See the show to see how all these come together in the incredibly strange finale.
Overall, this is a very good installment of the show. As a trained psychotherapist, I was a bit dubious of the Bipolar Disorder (as he was far more delusional than a typical case of the disorder--and seemed more like he had a Schizoaffective disorder, since he seemed like he had Bipolar Disorder AND Schizophrenia). However, this is a minor technical quibble. One more more obvious problem is the sloppiness of the hostage portion--as again and again, everyone made it EASY for a clearly insane man to get a hold of guns and explosives! Still, I could ignore this a bit as the rest was quite entertaining.
