The first season of Best Medicine is approaching its end in the 2026 TV schedule, with Fox’s newest medical series building a fanbase quickly enough to score a Season 2 renewal pretty early on. Unlike most hour-long medical shows, Best Medicine is a dramedy rather than a straight drama, which has meant the executive producers and writers finding a way to sometimes play Dr. Martin Best’s (Josh Charles) blood phobia for laughs without making a joke of why he suffers from it. Two EPs opened up to CinemaBlend about finding a balance to avoid getting “cartoony.”
The origin of his blood phobia certainly isn’t funny, as the once-renowned surgeon froze up during an operation when a young child was in a car accident, reminding him of the traumatic loss of his sister as a child. But Josh Charles’ portrayal of Martin trying not to gag or pass out at the sight of blood is often pretty funny, with Best Medicine taking full advantage of the humor of a doctor who can’t stand the sight of blood. Plus, it added an interesting layer early on to his relationship with Elaine, who was the first person in Port Wenn to learn his secret.
I spoke with executive producer/showrunner Liz Tuccillo and EP Rodney Ferrell at SCAD TVfest in Atlanta about the show, and Tuccillo commended the leading man for selling the fear of blood in a way that’s not “cartoony.” She shared:
Article continues belowThat is really it. You have to have an actor who is sort of able to play the reality of it. That's how something's not cartoony, and yet we still added ways to make it sort of dramatic and visual and for the audience [with] the blood phobia. But at the end of the day, it's Josh being able to ground it in the reality of it.
The blood phobia was pulled straight from Doc Martin, the British show that inspired Best Medicine. In fact, Doc Martin star Martin Clunes even guest-starred on Best Medicine as Martin Best’s dad, and this fear of Martin’s helped elevate the Fox series beyond just another medical show or even just a rom-com with the brewing romance between Martin and Abigail Spencer’s Louisa. (You can revisit every episode of Season 1 so far streaming with a Hulu subscription now.)
Executive producer Rodney Ferrell went on to compliment the showrunner for sticking to her guns about how to handle the origin of Martin’s phobia in the earliest days of the series, explaining:
And I think to Liz's credit, you're doing stuff for a broadcast television network. They would love to have the answers in the first episode for everyone to see. But Liz fought back about the progression of this story and how it was going to draw people in. Something was off about this guy, a surgeon [with blood phobia], and it was going to be protracted out. And I think that was a big positive for the show.
The medical cases that Martin tackles on a weekly basis in Port Wenn are as one-off as they are wacky, without much serialization to speak of other than the relationships between the characters (and Martin’s efforts to get rid of the dog who has claimed him as owner). According to the EP, the showrunner was determined to draw out the mystery of why the Harvard-educated surgeon was suddenly getting the vapors over droplets of blood rather than dump all the exposition at once.
The complications of Martin’s past before arriving in Port Wenn are certainly coming to light differently than how Doc, Fox’s other hit medical series, unravels its serialized storylines, but the pairing of the two shows evidently worked well enough for the network this season for both to score renewals. It remains to be seen if Fox will once again pair them in primetime.
It’s worth noting that Fox renewed Doc for a 22-episode Season 3 in the 2026-2027 TV schedule (per THR) and Best Medicine for a 12-episode Season 2, which suggests that the network could be repeating the lineup for the 2025-2026 TV season. As you may remember, Fox’s Tuesday nights in the fall paired Doc with Murder in a Small Town, with Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk’s series being replaced by Best Medicine in early 2026.
MIAST hasn’t been officially renewed for Season 3 yet at the time of writing, but the showrunner had high hopes as of the Season 2 finale. I wouldn’t be surprised to get Best Medicine back – blood phobia and all – with Doc early in 2027 after the upcoming Season 1 finale in April.
For now, keep tuning in to Fox on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET for new episodes of Best Medicine, or stream next day via Hulu. While it remains to be seen whether the sparks between Martin and Louisa will fully catch flame before the final credits roll on Season 1, at least fans can already rest easy that Best Medicine hasn’t been cancelled.
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