THE POLDARK PISTACHIO CHRONICLES: Season 1 Episode 1

Here’s the thing about pistachios: you can’t stop at one.

You eat one and there is simply no way you can stop until they are gone, or until your lips are so salted it actually hurts to speak and your fingers are so red, it looks like you hand-fed a small child to Hannibal Lecter. 

  
The new BBC One made for TV show 'Poldark' has proven to be the pistachios of my tv viewing life and although initially unprepared for the addiction, I am fine now, and coping. *and by ‘coping’ I mean that my eyes burn from not blinking for the four hours it took to watch the first four episodes back to back last night and my knees are locked into Lazy-Boy Position One and I have to hobble to the bathroom now. And that IS fine. It could have turned out much worse (read: like when I binge watched Grey’s Anatomy)

As it was, I stopped after Ep4 so I could 1) go to bed at 4:00 a.m and 2) I can’t recall…I am running on fumes here…

So. It’s the ladies from our Outlander Series FaceBook Group that I have to blame for this new compulsion to deprive myself of sleep. We are in a period of time called Droughtlander wherein the Starz version of Outlander, the massively popular book series by Diana Gabaldon, is now done for Season One and the masses of horny middle-aged women with dragonfly earrings and wool cowl neckwarmers are in desperate search for something ANYTHING sexy and time-period piecey to watch. All those stilled vibrators have left a deafening silence that must be reckoned with!

And so they have been. With a new heart-throb.

Poldark. Ross Poldark.

Double O 7 Hells he’s gorgeous! *Game of Thrones reference unintentional but apropo nonetheless

I get bored doing conventional reviews (there are a ton out there) so I will just call it as I see it and you can Wiki the show if you want a complete synopsis…it aint happenin’ here.

The show opens and in BARELY over 1 minute, we see the main protagonist,a Bad Boy Type with a voice so deep and lusty to inspire thoughts of whether it tastes as good as it sounds. Unwilling to risk losing a mysterious wee pinkie ring (which means its either a lady love's or he's Liberace’s ancestor) on a card game bet, and after being insolent to a superior, he gives us THIS look:

Well, that is how it looked to a normal person, but to me it was more ethereal and looked more like an epiphany…*cue angel choir and harps*

Twitterpated eyes see what they will.

Then we see, happily, that The Blood Splatter Guy* is back in town when a (thankfully) brief fight ensues.

*My 16 yr old and I are, besides British Drama Geeks, huge SPN (Supernatural) fans and always cheer the Blood Splatter Guy on in that show…he's always super busy

In the ever-necessary flashbacks, we have discovered that he is in love with Elizabeth, the owner of the ring, and surely she is waiting for him *butt of gun to the face…blackout and roll opening credits whilst we chew on how they will reunite* I would show her picture here but I hate her so...no.

  
I liked the pre-credit aerial shot of Poldarks ‘Is-He-Dead?’ body on the ground, surrounded by ‘Yep-They’re –Dead’ bodies...

Made me wax nostalgic for Sixth Sense (and worried me that Ross was having an out-of-body-experience and had actually died!)…

...and Game Of Thrones White Walker Crop Circle…

Nothing wrong with a wee bit of aerial work to give the camera guys something fun  to do.

Having worked heavily with the CIA, KGB, FBI and the RCMP as an Independent Sleuth for over 30 years has its pluses as I tend to notice hidden details and smiled when I noticed the following artistic subliminal imagery in the credits:

1) Aidan Turner (Ross Poldark) is in the scene that opens with his name on it (yes, that's him way down there on that tiny horse):

2) Ross Poldark rides his horse over a field and almost right into the writer's surname 'Horsfield':

3) A opening to a mineshaft (?) is the backdrop for a gem of a name of actress, Ruby Bentall:

4) Am I the ONLY one who sees the word 'blaze' right away in this name superimposed over the blazing fire?

5) The last image we see before the episodes start is that of a darkened sky and a dark silhouette of the titled character, the aptly named Poldark.

Coincidences? Ithinknot.

The theme song plays over these lovey images and I am SO happy. I tend to compare all theme songs with the Game of Thrones opener now, as it is perfection. Sensual, thumping drums with sweet strands of strings combine masculine and feminine desire…beautiful and bold. I so love it that I was prepared to not like Poldark’s theme, as I do not actually like any other, but to my delight, it began with a high yearning note from a lovely lone violin and immediately caught my heart. It is short and sweet and has an Old School satisfying and sexy ache about it. Thank you Anne Dudley!

  
Two years pass and we are brought into present day, with Ross in a bumpy carriage heading home. Taking a leaf from Professor Lupin's book, Ross pretends to sleep while others gossip about him regardless of his being RIGHT THERE and as likely to be able to sleep as if he were riding a camel bareback over a washboard (or as Get Smart’s Agent 86 would say “The Old Fake Snoozing Only Morons Would Fall For Trick)

...which brings us to Ugly Gossiper #1:

*Might I interject right here for a moment and just say how fucking gorgeous Aidan Turner is. I have been lax in my praise of this man and feel it needs to be expounded upon.

Some people are Ass Men (masculine tense is just easier to use...and funnier. Sorry.) some are Boob Men and others yet are Leg Men…but I am a BottomLip/Chin Man. I KNOW there must be an official name for the chiseled cut of a well-formed bottom lip and its connection to the chin but I don't know it (like how the soft hollow at the base of the throat is called a suprasternal notch as we learned in **The English Patient). It kills me when I see a nice one  and... ummm...is it getting hot in here?

I vote to call it the deniselovesthis notch. Just a suggestion…*my DH has one too and it's why I married him.

He is Kili The Dwarf from The Hobbit no more (although I confess to never having such vivid and naughty dreams with a dwarf before he came along. I'm lovin' Tyrion Lannister (GoT) but not THAT kind of lovin'...

Okay...back to Plodark, where Aidan's natural height and width make for better dreams. *do his eyes follow you in the pic below too, or am I just special...

Having barely survived the war, Ross arrives home to find his father dead and his beloved betrothed to his goodly but spoiledasshit cousin Francis. I think his Uncle Charles later becomes Krang in the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles saga. I could be wrong.

And his Great-Aunt is a bit of a witch and definitely helped found Hogwarts.

Ah, and we do also meet the wee pinkie ring owner Elizabeth (a.k.a as GottaBagAPoldark Liz or Elizabitch). I will break down and allow one pic of her:

Poor Ross went from Euphoria to Kicked-In-The Sac in 3.4 seconds flat:

I had an instant dislike of Elizabitch and it had nothing to do with being jealous. *Well, maybe a little. But being a man’s man, Ross stays classy and swallows his pain long enough to toast the newly engaged couple, but not without strategically holding his pinky out, Elizabitch’s ring glaring accusingly in her face, blinding her with its wrath. Nice touch. *looks like they employed a kid with a flashlight to make sure that sucker shone like a headlight in a deer's eyes...

Ross is heartbroken indeed, but not as broken as his inherited estate which has fallen in disrepair, despite the efforts (or lack thereof) of his father's trusted personal servants Prudie and Jud, the Poldark version of Madame and Monsieur Thenardier (Les Miserable). They are the comic relief of the show and as dirty, manipulative and lazy as the aforementioned miserable couple but somehow just as endearing (eventually), in a sort of 18^th Century Rapscallion Assholes kind of way. They even look a bit like them…

It was inevitable and desirable that a highly unlikely love interest would reveal herself soon and it did. A little on the nose but hey, it worked for me.

You just KNOW that battered, starving, gangly ‘boy’ with poor diction and a love for dogs is going to be a major player and one begins to look deeper behind the scabs and dirt. Yep, start Pug Ugly and then pull a Cinderella. An uplifting, feel-good effect if pulled off right. (ooops…I'm getting ahead of myself)

 

They even have some serious scars to compare/contrast and bond them like Elmer’s Glue, much like the Scar Scene in JAWS:

I call her Dezmerelda Corn because I can never remember her name but it will stick eventually. Whoever plays Dezmerelda (okay fine…I’ll go look it up...I can't hate on every woman Ross meets. It’s Eleanor Tomlinson and she plays Demelza Carne) is great at being ignorant, shy and decidedly unattractive and then BANG, she is right beautiful! It isn't just looks that can do that. It is demeanor and poise that only good actresses have. I guess I am a fan after all. Love the underdog, so well done BBC One, well done indeed. (But again, I am getting ahead of myself...sorry)

 

Ross gets paid a visit by Demelza's daddy and 2 of 6 brothers and a shitkicking ensues that leads to…well, a bloody nose and a handshake for being a Timex Fighter (Ross takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’)...

...and Demelza thinks she isn't wanted anymore and runs away, only to be picked up by Ross and taken home (for more than a cup of tea and biscuits, one hopes, but I’ll talk about that in my next blog post POLDARK: Episode 2 Wheal of Fortune *A Game of Chance and Love).

Final thoughts on Season 1 Episode 1: I read somewhere that Poldark was in book form and I am happierthanapiginshit that I never read the book first. ADAPTATIONS traditionally suck and if one cannot separate Book from Show and enjoy them as two separate entities with their own merits to admire (I could do so with GoT but not with Outlander), then it's best to choose loyalty to one and let the other die. I am a Book Person first and Show Person second...by far...but in the case of Poldark, I am happy to veer off track.

**Speaking of The English Patient (yes, I was at one point) perhaps I am diggin' Demelza because she is the doppelganger of the beautiful and amazing Kristin Scott Thomas. If they are related, I would not be surprised:

Cheers for now! *runs off to re-watch Ep2 and refresh memory and wine glass... 

***FOR THE REVIEW OF EPISODE 2 CLICK HERE!  
***FOR THE REVIEW OF EPISODE 3 CLICK HERE


                                                      #Poldork