What We Know About 'Poldark' Season 4 So Far

Poldark Season 4 has officially wrapped filming, with an anticipated premiere later this year on both sides of the pond.

So what do we know about the latest season so far? Let's take a look.

Filming for the next season of Poldark started not long after Season 3 wrapped on BBC One, but far before the show debuted stateside on PBS. Since then, it's been a fight to keep spoilers under wraps, as fans have flocked to Cornwall, hoping to catch sight of the show in production and post photos to Twitter.

And action! #Poldark Series 4 is rolling… pic.twitter.com/QePp2a2NrV

— Official Poldark (@PoldarkTV) September 5, 2017

Five months later, filming is all done, and the editing process can begin, with fans eyeing a debut date for the new season in the UK sometime this summer. (Knowing the way the BBC rolls, we won't actually know until a few weeks prior.)

PBS will probably not confirm a US release date until BBC has confirmed its initial start date, but Poldark has been doing well as an October/November show, so even if the BBC doesn't decide to let the show stay put in the June/July slot, and decides to move it back to a fall premiere, we should expect it to stay relatively close to the beginning of October over here.

So what do we know about Poldark Season 4? Without getting into spoilers, Season 3 left off in the novels towards the end of Book 6: The Four Swans. 

Season 4 will pick up where last season left off, and then cover Book 7: The Angry Tide. That pushes the story up to the end of the century, and Christmas 1799, which is the same point where the original 1970s miniseries ended. At the time, that was where the novels ended too, but since then Graham wrote four more, taking the series all the way up to twelve installments.

And that is a wrap on #Poldark S4 - thanks for all the support! pic.twitter.com/SewL2On3Ki

— Official Poldark (@PoldarkTV) January 19, 2018

Aidan Turner has said he doesn't want to be aged up to play old Ross. Book 8, The Stranger from the Sea, time jumps ahead by a decade for instance, and beyond that, the story focuses on the Poldark children as they become adults, so with perhaps only one more season after this, we should expect not to go much further than that. (Eleanor Tomlinson and Turner are both optioned through five seasons, so going beyond that would also require contract negotiations that could turn expensive.)

So what should we expect? Scriptwriter Debbie Horsfield told the RadioTimes that Poldark's going political this season.

Horsfield: [Ross] does take George’s seat. He beats George. At the end of this series we see him coming to the realisation that next time a seat is offered he has to take it. He’s not desperate to head off to Westminster but a catastrophic happening in episode one of series four makes him realise that in order to have the power to effect any change he needs to get out of his comfort zone.

[The show is] very much Cornwall-based but there are so many characters and flavours and one of those flavours is London. That’s a thing we haven’t really seen. We saw it when Caroline was in London. There are whole sequences where we go to London and that’s a really exciting new flavour to it. We will meet real characters, like [Prime Minister] William Pitt and [anti-slavery campaigner] William Wilberforce. There are some wonderful affirming storylines and some utterly tragic ones coming up.

But what will Demelza do with Ross in London? Will she follow him? Or will she stay home and have fun with Hugh Armitage?

Horsfield promises that we'll spend a lot of time with Demelza, and explore why she does what she does, as well as focusing on Armitage's reasons. The actor, Joshua Whitehouse, promises he'll be causing more trouble for the couple this season. Demelza is a fan favorite, so the more of her, the better.

Of course, there will also be plenty of Warleggan and Elizabeth too, as they continue to be bizarrely miserable. And while Elizabeth may have convinced George that Valentine is his, the late great Aunt Agatha's parting shot will still haunt everyone.

When he suggests ordering pizza pic.twitter.com/romXYDmHoZ

— Heida Reed (@ReedHeida) January 8, 2018

Along with the aforementioned Williams Pitt and Wilberforce, there will also be some not-so historically real characters entering the story. Our newest villain is Monk Adderley, played by Max Bennett, who Ross runs into in London. He's a friend of Warleggan, natch. We'll also meet Morwenna's mother-in-law Lady Whitworth, played by Rebecca Front, because Reverend Osborne wasn't terrible enough. And while Geoffrey Charles isn't a new character, he's been aged up again and will be played by Louis Davison this coming season.

Speaking of Morwenna and Drake, Horsfield promises they won't be miserable forever, though their way back together will be gradual. Until then, Drake will at least have brother Sam by his side. Also, Dwight and Caroline will continue to have troubles in their own marriage. The only marriage that seems to be safe is Jud and Prudie, but that's because Phil Davis isn't coming back. The show he left Poldark for, Riviera, was picked up for a second season.

Until then, we continue to wait for a trailer. Poldark Season 4 will returns sometime in 2018.