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prairiechzhead · 6 years

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PrairieChzHead Watches 70s Poldark--Episode 1

These are my unfiltered thoughts that I typed up in real time as I watched.

I have not listened to the Poldark Podcast commentary. Any similarity in observations is coincidental. I will listen after I watch this on my own. I’ve read the books. I already know that this will not be the same as the books OR the current adaptation. Here we go after the jump.

Very distracted by the fact that the inside of the carriage was videotaped, but the outside footage was filmed.

Nat Pearce looks like Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard wearing a wig made from a scalped poodle.

Robin Ellis has the nicest hair or wig if it’s a wig. Who knows, because this was the 70s and men had long hair.

Sorry, but Aidan Turner’s scar is better.

2015 version of Ross’s return was better.

This was on TV in 1975 and I’m mentally trying to think of anyone in the current cast who was born when this originally aired. I can probably count them on one hand. (For the record, PrairieChzHead was alive in 1975 and in Kindergarten, so no, I don’t remember this airing on Masterpiece Theater at all because I didn’t watch Masterpiece Theater when I was 5 years old.)

Sloth and Slut is a cool name for a band. Or a pub.

WTF is this about selling Wheal Leisure to Nicholas Warleggan???

Ross says no, he won’t sell Wheal Leisure to NW and then suddenly there’s an ominous crack of thunder. I’m over in the corner giggling.

This Francis is really foppish and a dandy. I’m not too crazy about 70s Francis.

Someone might want to lay off the thunder sound effects.

I’m not too crazy about 70s Verity’s frilly, white cap. It makes her look like a maid and a spinster. Yeah, I know she’s technically a spinster, but still, it’s Verity.

There was an exterior shot of Nampara that looked like a miniature from Sid & Marty Krofft’s Land of the Lost.

Okay, I can see why Charles referred to Prudie as a slut. Prudie, you might want to invest in a corset. Really.

I hate, hate, hate 70s Elizabeth’s wig. It looks like one of those bad 70s mail order perm wigs you’d see in the back of Woman’s Day magazine with a drop curl added as an afterthought.

The Appalachian Mountains are south of New York, so Ross would have walked over the Appalachians and up to New York, not down. The writer of this episode is probably dead by now, but encyclopedias and maps did exist in the 1970s, so there is no excuse for not knowing this. (If my mother could obtain a full set of red leather Brittanica Jr. Encyclopeda’s for buying groceries every week at the local Piggly Wiggly, the writer of this episode has no excuse for being so lazy.)

70s Mrs. Chynoweth is a snarky bitch, too. Glad they kept that.

I’d forgotten that in the 70s, outdoor locations were filmed on many BBC/Masterpiece Theater productions while the interiors were videotaped. It looked cheesy then. It looks cheesy now.

Nicholas Warleggan reminds me of Ernest Borgnine.

The candle stuck to the hat is actually a nice touch. It might look cheesy, but it’s probably historically accurate.

Francis just fell down the well into the mining water. I think I prefer the 2015 version of this scene. 70s Ross was too polite. I liked that 2015 Ross got to lose his temper and show his anger and hurt. The exchange in the 70s version had all the emotion of two people making awkward small talk about the weather. I blame that on the person who wrote the script.

I don’t like this made up thing about selling Wheal Leisure to the Warleggans assuming Ross was dead. I prefer the book/2015 version—letting George worm his way into owning it once it becomes profitable. This story thread assumes that Leisure is profitable already and it takes the drama away from the struggle to see if it will produce.

This show has the feel of a 1970s episode of Masterpiece Theater. If only Alistair Cooke was still alive to introduce it for us.

I don’t like this “marry Francis and I’ll erase your debts” rationale for the Elizabeth/Francis marriage. Nor do I like the “I can’t marry you, Ross, because you’re a scary dude” reason, either. Both take away Elizabeth’s agency—she made a choice based on her being a product of her time and her station. She may have felt pressure to not break off the engagement, but she stuck with the conventional and socially correct behavior.

70s Jud looks like Festus from Gunsmoke if Festus was a meth head.

Dear Prudie, please invest in a pair of stays and a chemise. I realize that it was popular to not wear a bra back in the 1970s, because that’s how they tried to smash the patriarchy back then, but I don’t think that applies to period dramas. Plus you’re wearing your fichu wrong.

I think I like Warren Clarke’s Charles Poldark better.

This Episode 1 ends on Francis and Elizabeth’s wedding. Ross is standing on a cliff staring out at the ocean. I think I recognize that cliff from the current adaptation. Seriously.

No Demelza in this episode. I’m looking forward to seeing Anghared Rees’s portrayal.

Okay. It’s one episode and it does have some good points to it. There are things about the story that I’m not too keen on but knowing that Winston Graham was alive when this version aired and was able to take creative control of this does ease my mind a bit. It will be interesting to see how these bits I’m not too crazy about get resolved.

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prairiechzhead · 6 years

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I watched Episode 2 of the 70s adaptation of Poldark last night and now I have questions.

Lots of them.

Why do Jim Carter and Jinny look like they’re 30? Why does Verity look about 40?

WTF is this thing where it seems like Ross is a regular customer of Margaret’s? And could they have telegraphed what was going to happen any louder?

Would it be improper for an employer in the 18th century to buy his housekeeper a proper set of stays? More importantly, would it be improper that someone insist that 70s Prudie wear them? I get that Prudie is supposed to be slovenly and all, but she’s the housekeeper! She’s supposed to greet visitors and it’s not dignified for the girls to be roaming free like that.

And Demelza...offering to drop your drawers for a shilling? WTF girl? And where was Garrick????

Francis certainly didn’t waste any time starting up with the gaming and the whoring, didn’t he? Last I saw him, he was at his own wedding.

That whole scene with Demelza’s father coming to get her was a serious let down.

And Charles immediately liking Blamey before finding out about Blamey’s past.

Ross’s coat was far too dressy for going to the Redruth Fair to buy livestock. Did people wear leather jackets in 1783-84?

No wonder Winston Graham was pissed off about this adaptation so far.

#prairiechzhead watches poldark #Prairechzhead watches 70s Poldark #I have questions

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prairiechzhead · 7 years

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PrairieChzHead Rewatches Poldark S3 Legally--US Ep 6/UK Ep 7.

I’m going to come right out and say it: this episode is my least favorite of S3. It made me feel things. Bad things. Bad as in angry things. Once scene in particular still makes me feel stabby. This is the first time I rewatched it since last July.

When I submitted my answers for this one to the @poldarkpodcast, I tried to not mention that Thing That Made Me Stabby, but unfortunately, the stabby feeling would not go away, nor would it calm down.

Let’s see if I calmed down since last July, shall we?

What did you think of this week’s episode?

This episode made me angry. If and when I rewatch this one, I’m going to have to have copious amounts of alcohol with me in order to get through it.

No booze this time, although the first time I rewatched I was sitting with a tennis ball digging into my lower back because my muscles tensed up from bending over in the shower when I was shaving my legs. It’s supposed to help work the knots out.

The second time I rewatched it, my lower back was still hurting and I’d slathered enough Salonpas (aka Wasabi Ben-Gay) over where the muscles were knotted up to make my eyes water.

(Not that my back problems have anything to do with Poldark, but I’ve been having back problems lately.)

After rewatching, I think I’m more depressed than angry. Almost everyone was miserable in this episode.

Your favourite? Why?

The final confrontation between George and Agatha. The acting between Caroline and Jack was phenomenal.

This is still my favorite scene. George ruins Agatha’s party, but Agatha gets the last word, in a manner of speaking, because she gets into George’s head and plants doubts about Valentine’s parentage.

There is a bit I saw on the DVD where little Clowance grabs a toy cow from Jeremy and I swear the little girl who plays her had a smirk of triumph on her face, which made me smile.

Least favourite? Why?

When Ross learned that Agatha died and all Demelza could do was bitch at him about George becoming MP. I’m still LIVID over her behavior. Demelza is someone who has a quiet strength and grace, which is the perfect foil for Ross and his moodiness and impulsiveness. She is not submissive in the books. At least I didn’t feel she was. This Demelza is anything but that. I’m confused as to why Demelza would be surprised or angry that Ross would not want to be an MP. She’s always complaining that he’s never home. He hates the constraints of his social class, which he would be held to even more as MP than he is now. Ross is a grassroots kind of person and I think he knows this (which explains why he gifted land to the village and basically started Cornwall’s first CSA). He hates parties and balls and all that stuff and he’d be expected to go to more of those. She’s been married to him for 8 years or so. Shouldn’t she know this about him? Part of the speech she made in S2 E9 about her pride in Ross was that he was not like other men of his class. But now she wants him to be someone he’s not? Is this how the writers are going to justify her affair with Lord Byron, I mean, Hugh? Lord, I hope not.

Ross’s remark about men not paying attention to Demelza was annoying, but it annoyed me because it was a heavy-handed way for the writers to get across the point from the books that Ross took for granted Demelza would never act on the attention that she received from other men. That could have been handled better.

This final scene would be That Thing That Made Me Stabby.

I have this emotional trigger about seeing people basically crap all over or pile on someone who is hurting emotionally or in an emotionally vulnerable place. Especially if the person taking that emotional crap is a spouse, significant other, or a parent.

Let’s just say that this behavior hits too close to home and that I was the one being crapped on. It is tone-deaf, self-centered, and just hurtful to basically ignore and dismiss someone else’s feelings as if they don’t matter.

That it is Demelza doing this is especially galling to me. This is the same woman who went to Trenwith and took care of Francis, Elizabeth, & Geoffrey Charles when they all had the putrid throat, despite the fact that Francis had called her a trull and basically banned her from Trenwith for her part in Verity’s elopement in S1. This despite the fact that she was jealous and wary of Elizabeth. This is the action of someone who is selfless and giving and compassionate, which is what Demelza is and what makes her such a strong, likable character in the novels (and the show).

The woman who went to the beach to berate her grieving husband over something that could have waited, is not the real Demelza. The woman who would not allow herself to be baited by George, was baited by George. She is not the real Demelza. She is Pod Demelza.

What is Pod Demelza? If you’ve ever seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers (or as Monday Night Football commentator Jon Gruden calls it, “that body snatchers movie”), you know what I mean. Pod Demelza is a fraudulent double put in to take the place of the Real Demelza, who was probably abducted by aliens or something like that.

Ross’s remark in the show about men not paying attention to Demelza is heavy-handed and I still think it is heavy-handed. However, due to the time constraints on the TV adaptation, there is not enough time for DH to gradually develop the Very Bad Thing 2: Electric Boogaloo Story.

Novel spoilers ahead.

In the Four Swans, as Demelza’s attraction to Hugh grows, she is upfront about this to Ross. At the same time, Ross doesn’t seem bothered by what she is telling him because he takes for granted that she would never act on her attraction. When she does, and he suspects that she has, it affects him in such a way, the consequences spill into the next book.

However, since DH is not given the time needed to develop this properly, we get Ross making asshat remarks like this.

So while, as a woman, this annoys the piss out of me (and my middle finger would have suddenly gone upright), as a viewer who has also read the novels, I get why it’s necessary to have Ross say things like this.

I still want to flip a bird, but it’s easier to resist the urge.

Favourite new character? Why?

Emma. I think Sam has met his match. :)

I love Emma. I love her sass. The storyline with her and Sam will come to a head in S4, but I’m not that thrilled that their storyline got short-shrifted in S3. I would have liked to see more of Sassy Emma and Pious Sam.

Least favourite new character? Why? New and Improved Season 3 Demelza® ! Now with 75% more feistiness!. If being selfless and kind and compassionate means you’re being a housewife and in the background, then please, let Demelza be a housewife again. It’s like there is virtually no trace of the Demelza from S1 that selflessly went to Trenwith and took care of Francis, Elizabeth, and Geoffrey Charles when they had the putrid throat because she couldn’t bear to know that they were suffering. There’s no trace of the Demelza, who, in the middle of her marital woes with Ross in S2, put that aside to console him when the mine caved in. Instead, we’re left with a snarky, bitchy, shallow person who answers to Demelza Poldark, but doesn’t resemble the woman who is Ross’s counterbalance, partner, and sounding board. Demelza of Old would not have run after Ross to bitch at him about not accepting the offer to be MP when he found out his oldest living relative just passed away. Prudie showed more compassion towards Ross when he learned of Agatha’s passing than his own wife did.

I will not apologize for hating Pod Demelza. Never. Never ever, not ever. George put that bit in the letter in order to bait Ross and Demelza fell for it.

If I had to pick a different least favorite new character, it would be Rowella, because I know her storyline. She’s a conniver, that girl. (Although in her defense, she is conniving against Reverend Toe Sucker, and he gets what he deserves.)

Ossie is gross and nasty and vile. Horribly, horribly vile.

What made you cheer?

Dwight and Caroline’s 30 seconds of screen time. I’ve given up on them getting any substantial storyline in this series, so I’m going to take whatever moments of screen time I can get and cherish them.

Also...

The bit when Armitage was going to go up to Demelza at the Carolight Nuptials but Ross cut him off, leaving Lord Byron to stare forlornly at the two departing figures. That made me cheer.

What made you want to throw things at the television/computer screen?

Demelza. I don’t know what the writers did with the Demelza of old, but I’m not liking season 3 Demelza very much and this episode just cemented all the reasons why. Demelza is supposed to be a grown-ass woman and mother of two kids, but suddenly she is acting like an immature teen-aged girl. It felt to me that Demelza was constantly trying to pick fights with Ross. One example, from a conversation I was in about this on Tumblr, was that it seemed like she would bring up something prickly, like Valentine’s rickets for example, and then when Ross wouldn’t react the way she expected, she would get angry with him. From what I’ve seen so far, I’m not liking the direction of how this Demelza/Hugh thing is panning out. There were some conversations in the books between Ross and Demelza in this particular story thread that I would love to see acted out on screen, but I doubt that those conversations fit within the “Ross is ignoring me so I’ll find another man who will give me attention” storyline.

Three months later and this scene still makes feel things. I still want to hurl things, but not necessarily heavy things.

A second thing that made me want to throw things at my TV was when other people *cough, cough* Lord Falmouth & Hugh Armitage *cough, cough* who hijacked the Carolight show wedding and made it about Ross, who was clearly embarrassed about this. (But yes, I do get that the wedding is supposed to be a “stand in” for other parties in the novel, and the excessive praise for Ross happened at another party.) Dwight can toast whomever he wants because it’s his wedding. The others...well, it’s pretentious and rude.

A third thing that makes me still want to throw things at my TV is the “whose Valentine’s Daddy” speculation. There was no talk or speculation about Valentine’s baby daddy in the novels until Agatha got into George’s head and George’s behavior towards Valentine and Elizabeth changed. So then, out of nowhere, Demelza brings up Valentine having rickets and Dwight treating the child. She does this as if she suspects that Ross is Valentine’s father, and when she gets irritated because he doesn’t care like she thinks he should, I’m feeling the stabbiness return.

In order to make the Demelza/Hugh thing plausible for TV, they have to make Demelza have a reason to be ticked off enough at Ross to go out and roll in the dunes with Armitage. I hate this in general, but I specifically hate this because it has Demelza picking a fight when that is out of character. She gets annoyed and they argue, but I don’t recall her purposely picking fights in the novel. However, Ross, in this instance is still true to the novels in that he neither knows nor speculates on Valentine’s parentage. He doesn’t until the church scene in Four Swans and even then, it doesn’t occur to him when Elizabeth brings it up.

A fourth thing that makes me want to throw things at the TV is not that Demelza feels Ross is ignoring her. It’s how she reacts--that she is behaving so passive-aggressively and at times, looking for reasons to be ticked off with him. But she won’t tell him what is wrong. I dislike people who do this. It’s so manipulative and childish.

A fifth thing that makes me want to throw things at the TV is that Demelza wants Ross to be an MP, even though in the novels, she agreed with his decision to turn down Bassett’s offer because she knew he would chafe at being on someone else’s leash and having to bend to someone else’s will.

A sixth thing that makes me want to throw things at the TV is Hugh contriving to be invited to a party thrown by Francis Basset even though his uncle, Lord Falmouth and Bassett hate each other. Subtle, Hugh. Real subtle. You’re as subtle as the air in a room full of people after they ate Taco Bell.

By the way, that party looked deadly, deadly dull. I can’t blame Ross for not wanting to go.

I know, the books are not supposed to be the same as the show. But once you read the novels, you get very attached to these characters and when you see them being out of character, it can make one feel strong feelings. I can overlook some things, but not others.

What was your performance of the week? Jack Farthing & Caroline Blakiston and how they performed the final confrontation between George and Agatha. This is one of those scenes from the book I was looking forward to seeing on the show and both of them delivered.

I will miss their barbed exchanges. I am glad that the final exchange was true to the books and that the outcome, Agatha getting into George’s head, which is her having the last word, happened. Also, George’s “there will be no party” was spot on. You could literally feel the hatred between the two characters.

Bravo and well-done!

Any other observations you wish to share with us!

Sam is growing on me. :)

I liked that Elizabeth referred to Agatha as “my aunt” when Agatha died. Technically she wasn’t her aunt, but it’s one of those little things that shows that Elizabeth did still care about Agatha. It’s also one of those little moments that show us Elizabeth’s humanity, especially after her seeming to cross over to the Dark Side.

I know that Elizabeth is not a nice character. But it’s nice that they showed that she did care about Agatha.

Sam had to grow on me because his religious fervor is more heavy-handed than it is in the novels, and that heavy-handedness can be off-putting.

I’ve felt that the season 3 episodes were rushed. With the edits that PBS makes, the episodes feel rushed and choppy. The slight edits (the one or two seconds shaved here and there) are more noticeable than they were in S2. The larger edits are especially noticeable.

My local PBS station starts with their local sponsors at 7:58 pm. The "previously on Poldark” and the national sponsors begin at 8:00 pm. The actual opening credits start at 8:02.

Also, there was a new donor this week, one Carol Vasiladis. I wonder if she’ll ever get to tell us in person how much she enjoys Masterpiece Theater.

Demelza still comes off as a stroppy, snarky teenager, which is totally opposite of her characterization in the novels, but it’s more pronounced in this episode. I still hate this and I always will.

Also, I just listened to Four Swans on Audible.com as I am rewatching this episode, and it’s making the things I dislike about Demelza’s characterization even worse than when I first saw this episode.

Like I said, when you read the novels, you get very attached to the story and the characters.

And Favorite Aunt Agatha memory #RIPAuntAgatha

There are so many Agatha moments to like. I think the thing I will miss the most about Aunt Agatha is her running commentary. She’s like a living, breathing episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

There are many Agatha moments I love. But I think this one will always be my favorite because it sums up her sassiness. (Plus there’s Bonus Francis footage, because I miss Francis. I think everyone misses Francis.)

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Next week is US Ep 7/ UK Episode 8. We’re getting deeper into the Hugh Armitage storyline, which is not one of my favorite things in the novels. It’s really not one of my favorite things on the show. It’s also the second to last episode of Season 3, which also means that the December Pledge drive is coming up.

#poldark #poldark pbs #poldark spoilers #poldark s3 #prairiechzhead watches poldark

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prairiechzhead · 7 years

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Poldark S3 US Ep 5/UK Ep 6

Let’s see if my opinions from this post by @poldarkpodcast still hold up.

First, a disclaimer. I rewatch the DVD I have and then I write most of this post. Then I watch the PBS broadcast to reconcile the full UK episode I’ve been watching and their edited for time US broadcast, because there is always the chance that something I referenced in my original post was edited out of the US broadcast.

More answers than you can shake a toad at after the jump.

What did you think of this week’s episode?

For me, it was so-so. I didn’t hate it, but I wasn’t left ugly-crying like I was after last week’s episode.

The previous episode was full of action and feels and all the things. This one was not as exciting. But that’s not a bad thing because this episode both signals a wind down from Black Moon story lines and a shift into the Four Swans story arcs.

Your favourite scene? Why? Basically any scene where Aunt Agatha threw shade at George. Also I loved the discussion between Dwight and Caroline at the end of the show. I think it captured both how each was feeling (in regards to Dwight’s PTSD) and showed that understanding each other is the key to dealing with this. When someone has a mental illness, the family has to deal with it, too, and more often than not, there isn’t much support for them.

I’ve been binge-listening to an older version of the audio book for Black Moon. (Basically, someone ripped it from a CD.) When the narrator is doing Aunt Agatha’s voice, he makes her sound like Gollum, especially when she’s talking about planning her birthday party. This has nothing to do with the scenes in the show, or which ones I like. It’s an observation I wish to share.

One of my favorite scenes though, is a very short one with Agatha and George, where George is looking at Valentine in his cradle and Agatha makes a remark about being bullied and why George was bullied as a child. It wasn’t that he was poor, but it was because he was trying to deny his humble roots. She mentioned Valentine’s having rickets.

Another one was that brief moment when Agatha gave Whitworth the stink eye towards the end of the episode.

Least favourite scene? Why? Ossie’s toe sucking scene. If I were to ever consider toe sucking as a kink, this scene basically ruined it for me. That image of his porcine, red face with someone else’s toes in his mouth and then making the same sounds I do whenever I eat tiramisu will forever be seared on my brain. I can never “unknow” that this exists on film.

Three months later and its still gross.

Shockingly, PBS left the toe sucking scene (or most of it) in the episode. They did edit out most of Ossie’s orgasm noises, though.

It’s just as disgusting as it was the first time. See?

I’m not into kink-shaming. But this never, ever makes me want to participate in this kink, either giving or receiving ever. Is it possible to gouge out your mind’s eye?

Favourite new character? Why?

There were no new characters in this episode, but my favorite character was Aunt Agatha and her sassiness.

Her excitement over planning her 100th birthday party is one of the joys of this episode.

Least favourite new character? Why?

George and his stupid, over-the-top, “Ross is behind every bad thing that ever happens to me” paranoia. If “When George blames Ross for something that goes wrong in George’s life” is not already part of the Poldark Drinking Game, it should be. I can handle that he does things to hurt others if it means personal gain for him. I’m tired of how the writers are having his main motivation always be trying to one-up Ross, rather than stay with his main motivation being his insecurity as it is in the novels.

My thoughts on this haven’t changed and I addressed it last week. As over the top as it is, it’s building to something in the season finale. At the time I wrote this, I did not know it.

What made you cheer?

Zacky’s promotion to mine captain. While I am sure that there is no one in Cornwall who wishes that it had to happen because Henshawe died, I’m also sure that everyone will agree that Zacky earned it.

This time, I’m going to cheer over the fact that PBS edited out most of Ossie’s orgasm noises when he was sucking on that prostitute’s toes.

For what it’s worth, PBS cut out Zacky’s promotion scene. Not happy about that.

What made you want to throw things at the television/computer screen?

George blackmailing Morwenna into marrying Reverend Toesucker to keep Drake from the noose. Then having Drake find out about this the way he did. I know it’s for Drama™, but to me, it seemed way too over-the-top. The only thing that was missing was a mustache for George to twirl as he gloated over this.

This plot point was changed from the novel. Winston Graham likes to spring things on the reader and the characters, but in an understated way. One example is in the book Demelza with Julia’s death. We (the reader) don’t learn she died until Demelza’s fever broke. She asks to see Julia and Ross tells her that Julia was asleep or something like that. Then Ross wonders how he should break the news to Demelza that their daughter died. It was the same with Morwenna’s marriage.

Novel Spoilers:

The wedding was held while Drake was in France, but neither Drake, Ross, nor the readers learned of this until after they returned. Then we learn the details. The engagement between Whitworth and Morwenna was never technically broken and she was not coerced into marrying Ossie as a condition of Drake’s release. Basically, George and Elizabeth lied to her about sending her home and releasing Ossie from the engagement. Elizabeth came to Morwenna on a Sunday and basically told her that the Whitworths were coming to Trenwith and there would be a wedding whether she liked it or not. Morwenna was misled and forced into marriage with this man, because George had dropped the charges against Drake. Because of the times and the circumstances, Morwenna was trapped.

The audio book narrator in the version I’m listening to who is doing Elizabeth’s voice makes Elizabeth sound especially creepy in this section.

So to a reader of the novels, the way they handled this would seem over the top. However, given how it was handled in the novels, the “I’ll let Drake go if you marry Ossie” ploy is actually less icky and makes Elizabeth and George look like way better people than how they looked in the books. It also makes Morwenna look like she’s making a sacrifice for her true love rather than be forced into a marriage to a horrible man because it’s the 18th century and she has no say in it at all.

Most of Caroline’s reaction to Dwight’s PTSD, but particularly the line “why are you being so girly” was cut. People had taken exception with this originally last summer, because she was “insensitive”. Her reaction to his PTSD is correct for that time and place. You cannot expect someone in the 18th century to know how to react based upon the knowledge we have in the 21st century. There is no way she could know how she is supposed to react.

Another “throw things” moment is the toad storyline. In the novels, it was a prank. On the show, it’s way too over the top. They gave George a phobia that seems to be the result of being bullied, so it’s not quite as funny as it was intended.

In the novels, George did do some impressive mental gymnastics to try and pin the toad prank on Ross, though.

What was your performance of the week?

Caroline Blakiston as Aunt Agatha. She gave us the perfect blend of sassy shade-throwing, serious advice giving when it was needed, and sheer joy when she talked of her party.

I also would say that Elise Chappel deserves a nod for her portrayal of Morwenna in this episode. I do feel her pain.

So to both ladies...

Any other observations you wish to share with us!

We’re over halfway through the season now. At this point, I think season 3 is okay. However, the more I watch it, the more I pick up on things I may have missed the first few times I watched, and my opinion on it will change. Because of so many new characters and story lines, it may have been better in retrospect, if they’d done only Black Moon for season 3. Then perhaps they could have taken the time to tell the story properly and without it feeling choppy at times and rushed.

I still think they should have only done Black Moon for all of Season 3. Then there would have been enough time to give to those storylines. By doing this, Four Swans, which is basically where this episode falls (with a few storylines not yet finished from Black Moon thrown in), would be all of Season 4. Then we would be guaranteed a Season 5, which would be Angry Tide, and then they could end the entire show with Angry Tide.

They used the same exact footage of Ross riding into the gates of Trenwith and dismounting from his horse twice in this episode. First, when he visited Agatha and second, when he went to see George over Drake’s arrest for theft.

Something I’ve wondered about the PBS broadcast:

How come Darlene Shiley always gets to personally tell us how much she loves drama and Masterpiece, but Conrad Prebys and Debbie Turner don’t? Why?

Next Time: Oh this episode will be a doozy. It has been 3 months since it aired in the UK and I still haven’t been able to rewatch this.

#poldark #poldark s3 #poldark spoilers #poldark pbs #prairiechzhead watches poldark

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prairiechzhead · 7 years

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Poldark S3 Was A Huge Disappointment For Me and It All Boils Down To One Root Cause.

I had originally begun a draft of this post that devolved into everything that I cannot stand about how the show chose to move the character of Demelza into a different direction. That part of the post got really, really, really, really long.

Instead of sharing that really, really, really, really long post, I decided to write a new one. It’s also Sunday and the final episode of season 3 hasn’t aired yet as I begin this, but I need to write because for the past 10 weeks, I’ve been doing homework on Sunday mornings. I have no homework to type up because the summer term is finished. I find myself at a loss, so I began this post.

But I digress. You’ll find that I’m really good at that.

This is a really, really, really, really long post about the one reason why Season 3 was a disappointment to me. I’ve been able to distill my disappointment down to one root cause.

If you listen to the @poldarkpodcast, you know that I regularly submit my opinions on the episodes that just aired. You probably also know that I’m not fond of the direction in which they took Demelza this season.

Actually “not fond” is putting it mildly.

I HATE what they did to her character. I hate, hate, hate it! The Powers That Be decided that Demelza wasn’t “strong” enough or “feisty” enough in the novels, so they had to make her more modern to appeal to modern audiences.

However, in doing so, they basically took a shit all over Winston Graham’s work and a character that was based on his own wife. They’ve taken the product of someone who is a very gifted storyteller and dumbed it down so much, I start to feel stabby.

I’m glad he’s not alive to see this.

Feisty Demelza does not work in the Hugh/Demelza storyline. She doesn’t fit. She doesn’t belong there because Demelza’s inner conflict can’t exist with Show!Demelza as she has been written. An integral part of this story, Hugh Armitage’s basically taking advantage of Demelza’s kindness and turning it around on her through subtle manipulation, is missing. It cannot exist with Modern, Feisty Show!Demelza because of the trope that Modern, Feisty women can’t be manipulated. Internal conflicts only make one indecisive, and Modern, Feisty women, such as Show!Demelza can’t be indecisive.

As @mmmuses pointed out in an episode of the Poldark Podcast, when TPTB changed up Demelza, they neglected to change the other characters, too, particularly Ross. The two characters are foils for each other. In changing her, but not having him change in line with her change, the equilibrium is gone.

Show!Ross is pretty much the same as in the novels, with a few exceptions. In Black Moon and Four Swans, Book!Ross has matured and grown from the events in the previous novel. In the show, Show!Ross has grown and learned from what happened in season 2. However, when, in E1, he doesn’t want to talk about Elizabeth, even though Demelza is poking at him to do so, I don’t see this as him pretending that a problem doesn’t exist. I see it as him avoiding creating more problems because Demelza will inevitably take whatever he says the wrong way and not give him a chance to explain what he means. Demelza on the show has a very bad habit of doing this. In this episode, I see his reluctance to talk as Ross trying to avoid an argument. Granted, he doesn’t handle this in the best way because he’s not a good communicator.

Unlike her book counterpart, Show!Demelza seems to have regressed into a bratty teenager. Book!Ross describes Book!Demelza as “his conscience.”

Then there are all the inconsistencies in how her character is portrayed. The biggest and most egregious example of this for me (and this should not come as a surprise to you) is when, in Episode 7, she goes after Ross, who has just learned that his aunt Agatha died, is walking on the beach, trying to sort through his emotions, and then begins to tear him a new one about his decision to decline the offer of running for MP, because he “didn’t ask for her opinion”.

This scene STILL sticks in my craw because it is so out of character for Demelza to do this. Demelza is a kind and selfless person. She puts others before herself. Book!Demelza, when struggling with her attraction to Hugh, even puts the struggle into terms of her not wanting to see someone else suffer (this would be her tendency towards kindness) with her deep love for Ross and honoring her marriage vows. Book!Demelza and Show!Demelza from S1 and 2 would not do go to Ross and start screaming at him. Her first reaction would be to go to him and console him. Her opinion on this MP issue can wait because her husband needs her more.

If this out-of-character behavior wasn’t bad enough, there is a sub-section of the fandom who defend her behavior in that scene.

First of all, you don’t rip into someone who just learned that one of their few remaining relatives has died. You don’t do that. Period.

Second, why does Ross need her opinion on not running for MP? Now if he decided to run for MP without consulting her opinion, she has a case, because that would involve upheaval in their lives that would affect her, their children, the mine, and all the other day-to-day things that happen at Nampara. But for someone who has been very vocal in the past about her wish for Ross to be at home more, it makes zero sense for her to be upset with him for turning down something that would require him to be away from home for months at a time.

The writers also have Show!Demelza gift her brothers the use of a storage barn on Nampara land to use as a Methodist meeting house. (In the books, it was Ross who gifted them a building of some sort. Which one specifically escapes me at the moment.) But the thing is, Show!Demelza did this out of spite and behind his back because she was pissed off at Ross for being in France longer than he said he would be. He had good reason to: he was waiting for his contact to give him a list of the prisoners at Quimper and then he would know where Dwight Enys, a friend of the family, was.

It’s not like he decided to stay in Roscoff because he wanted to go out and party or anything like that. Her reaction was out of proportion to the event that supposedly triggered it. That is not the sign of an emotionally mature and strong person.

Strong people don’t do things out of spite. Weak people act out of spite. Immature people act out of spite. Perhaps if Show!Demelza had done this without being motivated to do so by her anger at Ross, it would come across more as an act performed by a strong person because a decision had to be made and there was no one around to make it except her. The writers want us to believe this, but I’m not buying it. Her anger and spite is clear when she makes the decision to gift the building to her brothers.

Because of the inconsistency in her characterization, the struggle that Book!Demelza went through in Four Swans over her attraction to Hugh Armitage is not there. I don’t sympathize with Show!Demelza. I’m not even sure if she is struggling emotionally, because given her past, inconsistent behavior on the show and how TPTB decided to not have Ross and Demelza fully reconcile, they have set up the climax of this storyline and Demelza’s motivation as to get revenge or to do it out of spite.

Again, emotionally mature, strong people DO NOT do things out of spite or to get even.

The characterization on the show then becomes problematic in scenes that are played out as they are in the novels. The best example is in episode 8 when Demelza makes the “I wish I could be two people” speech. In the novels, it comes off as her being honest and conflicted and it is set up to be confessional. On TV, it just comes off as her informing Ross that she’s probably going to make the Beast with Two Backs with Armitage and that if he doesn’t like it, too bad. In the same scene, she also tells Ross that he’s the one she belongs with. The scene is also blocked in a way where the two of them are sitting across from each other, which gives it a confrontational feel. It also makes Ross’s honesty about beginning to doubt his wife’s feelings for him even more painful to watch. Modern, Feisty Show!Demelza tells him to “be patient. As I was patient with you.” She’s referring to the aftermath of Ross’s Very Bad Thing with Elizabeth in season 2.

Which brings me to another point about Show!Demelza’s characterization in S3. TPTB have basically ignored what Show!Demelza did and said in S2. She wasn’t patient with Ross. She was angry, and rightfully so. She was ready to leave him because he couldn’t seem to make up his mind on who he really wanted. She was fed up waiting for him to get his head out of his ass. Ross can be thick sometimes, particularly when it comes to emotions. Ross is an emotionally stunted man who has difficulty expressing his emotions, AND expressing them in a way where he is not putting his foot in his mouth and making things worse. He certainly did plenty of that in S2 after his transgression.

But the main difference between him asking her to be patient and her asking him to be patient is that when Ross asked this of Demelza, the deed had already been done. When Demelza asks this of Ross, the deed has yet to come.

But now, when the shoe is on the other foot, she expects Ross to sit back and wait for her to get her head out of her ass and figure things out. Except this doesn’t work because Demelza is better at expressing her feelings than Ross is, MOST of the time. When she does not, she goes full passive-aggressive, which just makes things worse. Then there are times when she loses her temper and reacts to things that Ross says or does and she doesn’t give him a chance to explain further or clear up any confusion. This seems to happen when he says something in the most asinine and garbled way possible. As a result, Ross becomes reluctant to share things with her because he doesn’t want to anger her or hurt her.

Which brings me back to Episode 1 and the appearance that he’s pretending there is no problem in regards to Elizabeth.

This couple has very atrocious communication skills. The future therapist in me wants to sit both down and work with them on this.

So between what S2Show!Demelza did and the platitudes she threw in Ross’s face after Ross’s indiscretion now contradicts what S3Show!Demelza is about to do with Lord Byron aka Hugh Armitage. In this regard, Show!Demelza comes off as a hypocrite and Show!Ross now has some moral high ground. Making pronouncements works better if you make them after you did something wrong because you can always frame them as you messed up, but you learned from your mistakes. He messed up and he knows that what he did was wrong. He knows that he inflicted pain on her in the worst way possible. He regretted what he did almost immediately. She was hurt by what he did to her, but here she is, about to inflict the same pain on him. This is what gives Ross that bit of moral high ground. He learned. She has not.

One of the arguments that defenders of this Hugh/Demelza storyline in the show fall back on is this notion that Show!Demelza is being neglected by her husband. This is a line that’s been put forth by TPTB in the press. Having watched this show, I’m still waiting to see evidence of such neglect.

Ross was neglectful of her in S2. When it was pointed out to him that he had no clue that everything Demelza was doing to make sure there was food while they were going through a period of impoverishment, he tried to make up for it and as a result, we got that Stocking Scene. He also learned that she was starting to doubt his feelings for her, too. He showed her that he still loved her by the events in the stocking scene.

The one thing he doesn’t do in that moment and in that scene is brush off her concerns. In S3, when Demelza asks him to be patient after he confesses he’s begun to doubt her feelings for him, it comes across as if she’s brushing him off.

However, in S3, the couple are seen regularly sitting together and talking. Or they’re taking walks, hand in hand, I should add. Sometimes, the walks are just the two of them. Other times, their children are along. They work together in the garden. They are intimate.

So I am a tad confused as to where this argument that Show!Demelza is being neglected comes from.

TPTB have set up this tryst with Hugh Armitage based on non-existent evidence that her husband is not paying attention to her. Riiiiight.

I’m from the old school in that if you’re going to make a claim, it is your responsibility to back up that claim with evidence. Maybe the people in the back don’t require supporting evidence of this so-called neglect, but the people in the front do and I’m one of those people sitting up front.

Spousal neglect is one of the reasons why my first marriage fell apart. This neglect had ZERO to do with—

Again how exactly is Demelza being neglected? Dammit, I can’t even finish that sentence now.

The kind of emotional neglect that can destroy a marriage includes not standing by and supporting a spouse when that spouse is going through something very difficult. In my case, I had just been formally diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder that I’d been living with undiagnosed for half my life (I was 29 when I received my diagnosis) and my ex refused to support me because I’d decided to start taking anti-depressants and he “didn’t believe in taking pills for such a thing”.

THAT is neglect. His refusal to stick by me was one of the reasons that man is now my ex-husband. The man I am married to now (I refuse to call him my current husband because that suggests that there might be a future husband, which there will never be) has taken the time to learn about my depression and my anxiety. He goes with me to therapist appointments when I ask him to go. When I had a nervous breakdown four years ago and was contemplating suicide, I voluntarily checked myself into a psychiatric hospital. That man was there during visiting hours every single day. When I am going through an episode of depression or anxiety, he is the one who urges me to get up and do something. Anything. He may not always do the right thing, but that’s not the point. He is standing beside me and he is there when I need him. And that is why we’ve been together for almost 18 years and married for 15.

And after writing all of that, I’m still having trouble finding exactly in what way Ross is neglecting her during S3. Saying stupid things or insensitive things in the heat of the moment is not neglect. That’s just being a horse’s ass. At least he’s talking to you, Demelza.

The book version of Demelza, the one that TPTB decided wasn’t strong enough is actually a stronger person that the so-called Modern, Feisty Demelza. We, as a culture, have a serious problem with how we define strength and weakness in a person, particularly when it comes to emotions. Strong people, emotionally mature people are usually the quiet ones who take time to contemplate. Emotionally immature and weak people are the ones who throw tantrums and act out of spite. However, because we are conditioned to believe that strength is demonstrated by action, we view the person who has the outbursts and reacts based on their emotions as the strong ones. The person who takes the time to contemplate what they are doing is the weaker person, according to society.

It’s actually the other way around. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to make yourself take that step backwards, take those deep breaths, and not react viscerally.

TPTB have it backwards. Book!Demelza is the strong one. Season3Show!Demelza is the weaker character.

I’m sorry that the people in the back can’t wrap their heads around this, but that’s not my problem and those of us in the front should not be made to suffer for other people’s ignorance.

And this is why S3 is such a disappointment to me.

As it is about 2 hours and 45 minutes until the show airs, I’m posting this anyway, because unfortunately, I doubt that there is enough that will happen in one last episode to redeem this season for me.

#poldark #poldark s3 #prairiechzhead gets on her soapbox #i'll watch later but i think I'm just going to wash my hands of this season

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