The Final Season of 'Poldark' Will Air on Masterpiece This Fall
It’s official: The final season of period drama Poldark has a U.S. premiere date!
Last week, both the BBC and PBS Masterpiece released our first look at Poldark’s swan song, dropping a teaser trailer and a first promo image, and now there’s even more news to be had.
Season 5 will premiere in the U.K. this July, but U.S fans won’t have to wait very long to see the conclusion of Ross’ Poldark’s story for themselves. Poldark will return to PBS’s Masterpiece beginning Sunday, September 29.
This is officially the final season of the popular period drama, though it sounds as if Debbie Horsfield and company are leaving the door open to continue the franchise at some point down the road, perhaps led by the next generation of Poldark kids rather than current stars Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson.
That would actually make a lot of sense, given that there’s a rather significant time jump that takes place in the Winston Graham series of novels on which the show is based. Season 4 of Poldark adapted through the events of the seventh book in the series, The Angry Tide. (This is also, incidentally, the place where the original 1970s period drama wrapped up.) But Season 5 will tackle the next novel, The Stranger From the Sea.
Well, sort of.
Hold on to your tricorns... #PoldarkPBS: The Final Season premieres on Sunday, September 29 at 9/8c on MASTERPIECE @PBS! pic.twitter.com/R0EwWj9Xbh
— Masterpiece PBS (@masterpiecepbs) July 8, 2019
You see, there’s about a ten-year gap between the events of Angry Tide and Stranger, which would probably require a fair amount of aging make-up for some of the series’ main stars, which they all seem rather adamant about not wanting to do. (Turner himself, particularly.)
So, Horsfield has instead chosen to tell the story of what happened in those intervening "gap" years in between the two novels. Stranger From the Sea does make reference to several events that happen in this timeframe, and there are plenty of historical moments from the period that could serve as the basis for a variety of plots.
And, not for nothing, but this leaves the door wide open for a sequel series down the road that aims to tackle to the rest of Graham’s novels. (Which, in case you didn’t know, largely focus on the Poldark children rather than Ross and Demelza.
Need to catch up on Poldark before the series returns this Fall. We’ve got recaps of every single episode available here on the blog, and WETA Passport members can watch the whole series online right now.
Are you looking forward to Poldark’s return? Feeling anxious about the prospect of saying goodbye to the show for good this Fall? Share your feelings in the comments.
