My new wind-swept, muscly hero

I rarely write an article about a programme and focus so much interest on its main character. Of course there are heartthrobs who keep you glued to the screen, but Ross Poldark is different. The reason why he is different, is that rarely such a hype has been built around a single character, to the detriment of an otherwise rather empty show.

The story of the nation’s obsession with the Cornish hunk started in 1975, when the BBC began airing the series _Poldark _starring Robin Ellis. I guess as often happens, it probably started earlier with the Winston Graham books being published in 1940s and 50s, but those were darker times, without any pictures.

Looking at Robin Ellis now it’s hard to understand what of his weird 1970’s looks, hairdo and all, was so appealing to the ladies. However, this gentleman has forever been cursed with having played the dark Cornish gentleman.

Now a similar curse could fall on the shoulders of actor Aidan Turner. After portraying Kili in The Hobbit, vampire John Mitchell in Being Human and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Desperate Romantics, Turner has landed a role that might haunt him, and even worse in TV terms, typecast him, forever.

After the first episode of the show aired, in fact, all magazines and morning shows (which as we know is where the real TV gossip can be found) could focus on were Aidan Turner’s rugged looks. Thus completely ignoring Turner’s, and everyone else’s, relatively mediocre performances.

The situation took a turn for the worse in episode 3, when Turner made a habit of appearing without a shirt.

There are other characters in the show, good ones even, like Ross’s love interest Demelza (played by Eleanor Tomlinson), there are plotlines and cliff-hangers, the works, but I fear in a couple of weeks all we will remember is the scene where Poldark works his field bare-chested. This one particular scene caught the interest of warm-blooded women and farmers concerned with health and safety alike.

Adding to the distractions, the series, which started off strong with an interesting story of love and loss and with just enough talk of war and poverty, ended on a real low on Sunday. The finale was jam-packed with half-hearted emotional plot-turns and it didn’t help that the special effects guy was left loose, free to experiment with all his arsenal of filters, providing a rather confusing watch.

The real fall of Poldark, however, could have been anticipated by about the famous episode 3. Having bigged Ross up as the main male love interest, and having provided him with a contentious love triangle, the authors decided to marry him off to one of the two ladies to focus on more political themes. This is a noble effort, but one which comes with some danger.

In order to write a period drama addressing the social injustice of the epoch, you definitely can’t have half-naked hunks advertising the show. Of course you will attract attention, but it will be the wrong kind of attention, with most of the viewers interested in a little bit of light entertainment (the show was aired on a Sunday night for crying out loud).

In addition, you have to find something a little more engaging than copper mines and smeltering companies, the details of which I still fail to understand. All in all, Poldarkwas a fun substitute for Call the Midwife on BBC’s Sunday programming, and certainly a more light-hearted one. It taught most of us a lot about 1780s Cornwall, an almost virgin land full of copper, beautiful flowers and great accents (though not from Turner, who can barely hide his native Irish twang).

It also taught us about Aidan Turner’s abs, although these were hardly a mistery after his efforts in Desperate Romanticsto bare all the skin possible.

Seeing how empty the underlying themes are and how averge most of the storylines can be, I will probably not be tuning in for season 2, which has already been confirmed, but 5.9M viewers probably disagree with me.