British Period Drama · BBC / PBS · 2015–2019
Poldark
Captain Ross Poldark returns from war to 18th-century Cornwall to find his estate in ruins and his beloved about to marry his cousin. What follows is a swashbuckling, sweeping saga of romance, class, and rebellion against the dramatic backdrop of Cornish cliffs and sea. A reboot of the beloved 1970s series, it stars Aidan Turner as the smouldering, flawed hero at the centre of one of television's most addictive love triangles. Poldark airs on PBS; British TV Hub's guide to find where British shows are streaming covers everything else worth watching.
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Where to watch in the US
PBS Masterpiece
All 5 seasons · Free via local PBS station · full library with PBS Passport
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About the show
Winston Graham wrote twelve Poldark novels between 1945 and 2002, and the story has been adapted for the BBC twice — first in 1975 with Robin Ellis as Ross Poldark, then again in 2015 with Aidan Turner, this time written entirely by Debbie Horsfield across all five series. When the 2015 adaptation caught up to the source material after series four, Horsfield had to bridge an eleven-year gap Graham himself had left between novels, turning to the same real historical events, including the Napoleonic Wars and the approaching abolition of slavery, that Graham had used to anchor his fiction. Robin Ellis, the original 1975 Ross Poldark, returned in a supporting role as Reverend Halse in the new version.
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