Despite the series being a great way to spend an hour if you can spend it by watching it in two half hour segments, I do thank Donald and Darlene Shiley and Conrad and Debbie Preybs, and viewers like you, for coughing up the funds to help bring us these PBS shows from across the pond. I guess I even thank Ralph Lauren for always being allowed to show us craftsmanship is not dead where he is concerned. But, since I hardly watch anything without being able to DVR through the fluff, I don't have to suffer for what passes for PBS commercials each time I watch an episode. I know what they're going to say.
I just finished watching the episode that aired July 19th. To refresh where we are we need to remember Ross has gotten married to Demelza. He really does loves her, it's just his manly way of showing it. She has a baby Julia, and they are of course both ecstatic. Life changes. It always does.
Ross's Uncle Charles dies. This was preordained once you realized that the actor who plays the character, Warren Clarke, himself passed away himself sometime during the production of the series. An episode was dedicated to him.
Of course before Uncle Charles shuffles off the mortal coil he is attended to by the area doctor, Dr. Choake, who tries the then accepted remedy of bleeding the patient to get the illness out of him. Dr. Choake's name is pronounced "Choke" and it really makes you wonder how he has any patients. And any of them are breathing.
Copper is discovered in Ross's mine Wheel Leisure, as confusing a name as any to give a mine that is worked at with hammer and chisel, lit by candles, with no hint of mechanization anywhere. In fact, there are candles everywhere when you go indoors in this series. It is after all sometime after 1783, and you really wonder with medicine being what it was, and the prospect of living with no smoke detectors, how did anyone reach the 1800s? Yet, we know some did.
There are more scenes of horses, surf, cliffs, sky, and views of the horizon through Ross and Demelza's hair. But trouble is coming.
Verity, Francis's sister and Ross's cousin is heartbroken over her busted romance with a Royal Navy captain with a past. He is a bit over the moon about it too. Between Verity and Demelza going shopping, we are treated to women's hats that will soon be showing up retro-fashion on Duchess Kate Middleton's head next time she makes a balcony appearance at Buckingham Palace. There isn't a hat in this series on a female head that doesn't tilt. Must keep the water off.
The smelting companies are a cartel, and Ross in joining a group of businessmen--with no hint of background checks on any of them--that intend to break this cabal. You just know there is trouble in this.
Add to this Ross's cousin Francis, who is addicted to tavern playthings and cards, and who loses the family mine over the turn of some cards to a foppish dandy, and you have the basis for some building drama. I personally wonder if Francis is going to off himself over the troubles he's brought down on himself and those around him. More up-to-date viewers will know if I'm right, but please, no spoilers.
So, not quite up-to-date, but willing to get myself through this series, even if I do it my way with small doses. It's summer, and some the more adventurous series are over and the new ones haven't started yet.
So far, we don't even have a chase on horseback to keep me awake.
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