Does the show improve after season four

Hello,

I’ve been watching Doc Martin and I was enjoying it, until around season four. The show was something I enjoyed, but now it is starting to become a hate-watch. Does the show recover from this? Or is it all downhill and I should cut my losses?

In the early seasons, Martin was rude, but it never appeared to be intentional, he just lacked some social skills and always managed to say the wrong this (commenting on Louisa’s bad breath for instance). Yet now, he spends the episode going around insulting people, clearly intentionally. I agree, a few of the characters deserve criticism from him, but it makes Martin into a rather dull, one note and unsympathetic character.

The formula has also changed. In the early seasons, the patient of the week would show up with an illness, they would tell Martin some of the story but would leave out a crucial detail (either because they didn’t think it was relevant or they wanted to hide it). His initial diagnosis would be wrong and he’d reevaluate over the course of the episode. In more recent episodes, the patient shows up, he calls them stupid, rushes them out and misdiagnoses them because he didn’t take the time to listen. Yes he saves them in the end, but it could have been avoided if he wasn’t so dismissive in the first place. It makes him unlikable.

Does it improve?