Poldark Season One: How Does It Match Up To The Books?

Episode 1

I will spend a lot of time throughout this piece admiring the way the writers selected which elements of the Poldark novels to include, which to leave out, and how to convey the same feelings with or without certain scenes. We begin without Joshua’s prologue, and instead see just enough exact snippets of Ross during the war to understand what he has been through, what he expects to return to, and two primary facets of his personality: his devil-may-care humor, and his dedication to those he considers comrades.

Skipping over the nearly exact scene of Ross and Elizabeth’s rocky reunion, the next major scene of note is Ross’s reunion with his tenants, including Jim and Mark. Notably, the novel’s scene shows him speaking only with Mrs. Martin about her daughter, Jinny, and her troubles with Reuben Clemmow. It’s a plot that’s conspicuously absent in the series, a fact that points out how oddly useless it ends up being in the grand scheme of the series. Jim ends up where his chosen path leads him with or without Jinny and Reuben, and Jinny is left to stew as a minor supporting character with few lines or prominence. Disappointing, but perhaps a necessary casualty for two novels broken into eight episodes.

Instead, the focus remains on Ross here, via his relationship with his tenants. We get our first taste of his connection to the “common” people and how that sets him apart from others of the upper-class. It’s a running theme throughout both the novel and the series, and one the series emphasizes even more keenly. This episode and those that follow give the miners individual faces and voices beyond just Jim’s, allowing us to feel their plights more keenly as the story progresses. We’ll see that later in the episode again when they save him from the Illogan men–and you’ll note that Ross’s response is much gentler in the series.

We catch a brief glimpse of George Warleggan, the series’ primary villain, introduced earlier and in more prominence than in the novels. We’ll get back to him later, but it’s worth mentioning his early appearance as a sinister figure.

Finally, enter Demelza, who is definitely not a twelve-year-old girl. While this may have been done to make the story’s time skips considerably shorter while simultaneously making Ross and her relationship more palatable, the first few scenes with her in theme end up rather awkward. All that talk about her “knowing her own mind” sounds rather odd when referring to a grown woman. So does his rough handling of her at the pump; thank goodness he doesn’t make her take off her clothes for that. Her age also skirts concerns about paying her father for her work, and legal worries about kidnapping. When Mr. Carne shows up, it’s because a nobleman has spirited away his daughter, presumably for something illicit. But here, Demelza’s choice has much more weight.

Next: Episode 2