Review

Poldark gallops apace but loses direction: episode 4 review

Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark
Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark Credit: BBC

Hold on to your hats, for Poldark (BBC) proceeds at a gallop. So far we’ve had the trial, the acquittal and the plunge towards financial ruin. In this fourth episode, an outbreak of scurvy was averted, the warring Poldark clan came together in peace to toast the reopening of an old tin mine and the bloodying of George Warleggan’s uppity mug. Oh, and Demelza was hastily delivered of a son and heir.

Eleanor Tomlinson and Aidan Turner
Eleanor Tomlinson and Aidan Turner Credit: BBC

Phew. If the series carries on at such a lick, don’t bet your house against Cap’n Ross inventing builder’s brew, drafting the rules of association football and kick-starting the Industrial Revolution.

It was entirely gratifying to watch Warleggan, who had been practising pugilism in the library, take delivery of a long-awaited thrashing after he revealed himself to be capable of even more merciless skullduggery than previously thought possible. Revenge is a dish best served towards the middle of an eight-part series. It anchored an episode that hastened hither and thither like a boat searching in vain for a meaningful course through storm-tossed waters.

Gabriella Wilde as Caroline Panvenen
Gabriella Wilde as Caroline Panvenen Credit: BBC

Comic relief came via Caroline Panvenen’s pert flirtation with do-gooding Dr Dwight Enys. 

“Do you ride?” she enquired. “For pleasure, that is?” Oo-er. There’s only so many times a feeble catchphrase such as “I’ve other patients to attend to” will fend the posh minx off before they’re doing it side-saddle in an episode of Carry On Up the Clifftop.

Heida Reid
Heida Reid Credit: BBC

Meanwhile, Cap’n Ross removed his shirt but the once, for the purposes of sifting through a postbag groaning with bill demands. Apart from laying that merited fist on the Warleggan schnozzle, his moment of maximum machismo involved forcefully retrieving Demelza from a fishing boat in which she had carelessly rowed out on the brink of parturition.

Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson as Ross and Demelza Poldark
Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson as Ross and Demelza Poldark Credit: BBC

One doesn’t wish to issue health-and-safety bulletins on the BBC’s behalf, but this method of transport to the delivery suite is not recommended outside the diverting confines of a fictional 18th-century Cornwall.

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