I like to think of myself as a strong man.  I have to admit that in my youth this was not so much the case.  But even a grown man can be weakened by temptations as enticing as some left lying about my childhood home.  Louis L’Amour, Agathie Christie, Rex Stout, and, most dangerously, John D. MacDonald.  But as I attained manhood I seldom succumbed to more than the mildest of geeky debauchery as I obsessively pursued some technological project or another.

I certainly was not tempted by, indeed felt pity for the less stout who, like my mother, could not resist the Brit-coms.  I did not feel the least pull though my Mum repeatedly and carelessly exposed me to them.  So I was of this cocky mindset when Mother very irresponsibly exposed me to Doc Martin.  Oh, I know what you’re thinking.  What can be so dangerous about a misanthropic G.P. played by Martin “Dumbo” Clunes and a head mistress played by Caroline “Bucky the Beaver” Catz?

Well, plunk them down in the fictitious village of Portwenn (the only truly beautiful character in the series), sprinkle a bit of the best screenplays ever written on top, stir in chemistry between the protagonists that threatens to melt my plasma screen, and you’ve got a batch of television crack that will addict the very strongest of men.  To say that one enjoys viewing Doc Martin is like saying  one enjoys popping into the pub on the way home for a quick line of coke.  If you are, like myself, a Johnny-come-lately to the Doc Martin party you will find yourself passing up the movie theater on your day off to stay home and watch “just one more” episode.  And, yes, you will subsequently find yourself rubbing your reddened sleep-deprived eyes and straining to see what happens next in the evolution of a romance whose force quite frankly makes Romeo and Juliet look like nothing more than a spat of puppy love.

Oh, it can’t really be that good?  Go ahead.  Sneer and condescend in your ignorance.  Being a compassionate and moral man I won’t say, “Watch an episode or two and see how you end up.”  After all, that would be mean, knowing as I do what havoc this addiction has wrought in my life.

I don’t like being the one to cast my mother in such a bad light, but I’m sure she would be the first to admit that I’ve got it right.  I have to stop writing now.  It’s four fifteen a.m. and I’m feeling fresh enough to dive in to series four.

There now.  You’ve been duly warned.