'Doc Martin' Season 8 to Premiere in January on KCET

Three years since airing the last season, KCET’s highest-rated series returns for an eighth season as the good Doctor (Martin Clunes) and his wife Louisa (Caroline Catz) are back together confronting life in Portwenn with their infant son, James Henry. The new season of "Doc Martin" begins Thursday, Jan. 24 at 8:00 p.m.

Since the beginning, the beloved comedy/drama series has delighted fans with the trials and tribulations of the brash Ellingham, once a celebrated London surgeon who winds up in the sleepy village of Portwenn, replacing their deceased local doctor. But the new physician’s abrasive personality doesn't exactly mesh with the pace of life in Cornwall.

Martin Clunes says: “The Doc is as obstinate as ever, but he is trying his best to be a better husband and father.”

Returning to this eighth series, Dame Eileen Atkins plays Doc Martin’s formidable Aunt Ruth, who is beginning to doubt the wisdom of going into business with Bert Large and his son Al. Ian McNeice is back to play Bert Large, with Joe Absolom as his son Al.