Portwenn's Keystone Kop Joe Penhale, still exuberant over his fairly competent recent police work, tackles a shooting in "Wild West Country," Alastair Galbraith's first-time script for "Doc Martin" rife with rookie mistakes, which Charles Palmer exacerbates with formula direction, bringing this medical comedy-drama closer to conventional television tropes as it lumbers toward the Series Nine finale. The gunshot wounding of mysterious stranger Robert Brooke (Danny Huston) by ornery farmer Dennis Thorpe (Keith Bartlett), convinced that Brooke was trying to steal his eggs, spurs PC Penhale into zealous police work he hopes will lead to official recognition in this mediocre, disappointing outing.
Apart from shoving Marquez's by-now tired shtick---the borderline incompetent whose cloying attempts to look and sound capable only induce eye-rolling cringes---into the forefront, the shooting is the catalyst for the closing social observation, another of Galbraith's lackluster threads pulled from the handbook of Jack Lothian, the series' master of contrivance-laden train wrecks, now billed as the series' "creative consultant producer." As Doctor Martin Ellingham grapples with excitable teenager Emily Burnett's (Sally Messham) skin condition, wife Louisa, still concerned about their son James's non-social tendencies---seeming to take after his father---thankfully arranges a playdate for him with the son of undertaker Julia Pote (Olivia Poulet), whose allergic reaction to banana bread gets Louisa accidentally jabbed with an adrenaline shot in patented Lothian-esque slapstick.
Meanwhile, Bert and Al Large learn that the pub has been sold, leading to keen speculation about the buyer that telegraphs its misdirection and resolution as "Doc Martin" grasps at thin reeds to stay fresh. Finding none, it spoons out the pathos surrounding enigmatic Brooke, whose straitened circumstances require no guesswork as Huston gruffs and bluffs with little to work with, a wasted special-guest appearance. (As "Doc Martin" has had to resort to corny wordplay while calling for the next patient in the surgery reception room---asking for "Helen Highwater," for instance---to liven the pace, this episode's choice seems to be an obscure in-joke as Martin, after having treated Huston's Brooke, calls for "Daryl Hannah." Hannah and Huston had co-starred in director John Sayles's 2004 movie "Silver City.")
And with national treasure Eileen Atkins now reduced to a cameo role, Jessica Ransom looks exasperated as stale, stagnant "Wild West Country" lurches through dull, uninspired routines with no one except John Marquez, cementing Penhale's utter buffoonery, engaged beyond the weary professionalism now engulfing "Doc Martin."
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
