Poldark series 5, episode 3 review: Ross returns to swoonsome-hero mode at last

A flurry of derring-do was the highlight of Poldark (BBC One) when Cap’n Ross (Aidan Turner) returned to swoonsome-hero mode briefly for a nail-biting mine rescue with his old comrade Ned Despard (Vincent Regan). An act of selfless courage that saved the lives of 14 miners – or “a brand of reckless heroism more akin to madness” in the opinion of dreary Dr Enys (Luke Norris) who seems set on sinking ever-deeper into Eeyore-dom in this final series.

He was at it again while we were enjoying – a mite vengefully, admittedly – the sight of nasty George Warleggan (Jack Farthing) being brutalised by a quack psychiatrist. Already, the good doctor had deprived us all of a rousing cheer by saving George from chucking himself off a Cornish clifftop. Then he intervened to prevent George being further, as his Uncle Cary (Pip Torrens) put it, “frozen, burnt, blistered, drowned and shackled” (he omitted the bleeding with leeches), insisting that what grieving, psychotic George needed most was loving kindness, not shock treatment.

“The only lunatic in this room, is there!” cried Dr Enys, pointing an accusing finger at the quack. He might be a saintly medic, and a voice of progressive psychiatric thought, but Dr Enys is a bit too much of a pompous spoilsport, too.

Otherwise this was a slightly lacklustre episode, though it raced along at a gallop despite cartloads of worthy stuff about not employing 12-year-olds down mines, and the need for literacy if poor folk is ever goin’ better ‘emselves. Kitty Despard’s (Kerri MacLean) shock revelation that villainous Ralph Hanson (Peter Sullivan) debauched her at the age of twelve was a #MeToo moment that, it seems, will have to wait for resolution later in the series – although Ross did give Hanson a punch in the gut for good measure.

The only storylines that seemed to move forward significantly were Geoffrey Charles’ (Freddie Wise) wooing of Cecily Hanson (Lily Dodsworth-Evans); and the bringing of Ross’s little love-child Valentine into the bosom of the Poldark household. We doubt whether George will respond to those developments with loving kindness when he finally regains his senses