User Reviews

For me this is a truly brilliant episode. If you want a Doc Martin taster you could do no worse than chose this one. I am a latecomer to this drama - a sort of gutsy comedy. I am sure the much softer show, The Café, was part modelled on Doc Martin. This being the second episode of four watched almost back to back had me both laughing and feeling sorry for characters in equal measure. What more can one want? Most interesting about this series, so far, are the really good traces to be found at the start of the plot line. Quite weirdly, a bit like a simple Agatha Christi novel, the writers gives clues at the start and if you miss them, like I do, then the end results are a surprise. The smelly old man for instance. If you watch an episode for a second or third time (you have to be quite sad to do this) these little clues are priceless. In this episode Clunes is as good as ever but for me the real shine out performance was Felicity Montagu as Caroline Bosman. Here she is superb in her character "drunk" character. Her almost irascible character, someone claims she is "bloody minded" in this episode, really made me laugh a huge amount.

There are so many olfactory things going on here. Flowers, birds, breath, and so on. Two significant plots. First and foremost is the woman talk show host who has been slurring words. It is suspected that she is an alcoholic. The more gross one is an old man who smells so bad, they must open the windows when he appears in the Doc's surgery. Martin's secretary works with essential oil and aromatherapy because the office smells so bad. But Doc Martin, when the chips are down, does the right thing. As offensive as some find him, he is often heroic in his doggedness in treating patients. His love life, however, certainly hasn't got any better.

"Aromatherapy" is an okay episode of "Doc Martin". Like other episodes, it has multiple plots--one which is quite interesting and one which turned out to be a slight disappointment. The main plot involves a local radio personality. In a rare case, she's even more disagreeable than Doc Martin. This combined with apparent alcoholism are causing huge problems--especially since she won't seek help. However, through the course of the show, it turns out there's more to this case--and ultimately Martin figures it out before it's too late. As for the other plot, there's an old man who is incredibly smelly. Not much more to it than that. Overall, this is a mixed bag. The drinking plot is superb and worth your time. The other is just yecky.