For the last eight Sunday nights, the BBC’s first series of Poldark, remake of a beloved but forgotten 1970s series, has made itself a name as ‘appointment-to-view’ television. Set against a beautifully shot Cornish coastline, Poldark follows the trials and tribulations of unlikely-named hero Ross Poldark, scarred civil war soldier, who is constantly prevented from his preferred hobbies of eating pies, bedding his wife and staring into the sea by the evil machinations of utterly middle-class bankers and his weak and rage-filled cousin Francis.

Poldark is the definition of a historical romp: from topless scything to evil seductive prostitutes, this is a world of simple, physical pleasures where the good are unquestionably good and the evil are relentlessly evil: men are noble or greedy, women are kind or saucy. It is sumptuous, showy but, ultimately, superficial. Poldark’s world view is that of Downton Abbey in sillier hats and Cornish accents. It presents the late eighteenth century as a world where an ancient and oppressive class system was not necessarily broken; rather where the problem lay in the fact that those in positions of government were failing to be the jolly good chaps that they should be. The ultimate threat comes from those seeking to gain the kind of power that Poldark was born into and who refuse to remain as grateful serfs by trying to capitalise on wealth that they have made: the middle class Warleggans. This rise is a bad thing, Poldark tells us, because the middle classes are incapable of the same kind of humanity that the aristocratic Poldark embodies, even if not all aristocrats are as good as he is. The ‘good’ lower class characters are instead those who accept their place and bask in their master’s superiority. Such divisions may themselves be reflective of the fact that the first of the Poldark novels by Winston Graham, on which the series is based, were written in the 1940s, a time when nostalgia for simpler, more peaceful times may have held high currency.

Poldark is certainly not the first series to go for a nostalgic view of class systems, but the setting of the 1780s makes such nostalgia rather jarring. This is the 1780s! The crucible of modern thought, a time in which both the middle and lower classes found a voice to challenge the oppression and corruption of their governors and to propose a new world in which power was not monopolised by the few. There are hints of this in Poldark, not least in the Launceston corn riots scene, but the cause of such unrest, explains Ross, is that the masses are being governed badly, not that they shouldn’t be governed at all. This is shown most powerfully in the wrecking scenes in the final episode: while Poldark’s well-managed serfs work together to share the loot, those of the Warleggans’ mine scrabble and battle over every last piece, a terrifying image of what the masses without an aristocratic leader could be.

Poldark is stronger when it concentrates on personal relationships rather that politicking. The love triangle between Elizabeth, Demezla and Poldark is compelling, and the two central leads undoubtedly have excellent chemistry. The death of Julia in the final episode is deeply moving. The abject fall of Francis, while at times veering into the pantomime, has some great moments, even if his haircut is about twenty years before its time. Others are more awkward: the sudden passion between Verity and the ship’s captain (who did have a name but is recorded in my notes as ‘Captain Spank Boom’ due to the chat-up line he uses on Verity which is basically just listing types of sail) is pretty unbelievable. The Warleggans are shown as motiveless villains, whose main plan seems to be to buy out shares in Poldark’s mine at the same time as bringing about its bankruptcy. Now I’m no late eighteenth-century economics expert, but I’d say this isn’t a great idea.

The moral code of Poldark, which guides so much of the evil/good conflict that drives the plot forward, is also at times difficult to follow. In one scene we are supposed to sneer at the sumptuous nature of the Warleggans’ pile, given that his grandfather was a corn farmer, and yet in the very next scene we are supposed to marvel at the way in which Demezla easily takes on the role of a great society lady after being a kitchen maid. We are supposed to be impressed by the selfless heroism of the equally-unfortunately-named doctor Dwight Ennys and his work on mine diseases, but at the same time root for Poldark as he tries to keep the mine open, and continues to send his loyal servants down into conditions that are causing them serious harm. Particularly confusing is the series’ cavalier attitude to violence against women: we are exposed to the brutally shocking scene of Daniel killing his wife (who falls on the saucy side of the saucy/kind divide) by breaking her neck, but then are supposed to root for him as he escapes justice. And we are expected to accept without question Captain Spank Boom’s claim that his first wife caused her own death by falling awkwardly during a row. As a historian of domestic murder in the eighteenth century I have seen hundreds of such cases, but what lies behind them is a much more brutal truth.

Of course, one shouldn’t be too po-faced. This is fun, uncomplicated escapism. The cinematography is undoubtedly beautiful and I, for one, will be booking my next holiday to Cornwall as soon as possible. The characters are not terribly complex, and the acting, while generally not awful, is by no means breath-taking. It is a snug, period drama romp that fulfils its aim in taking the edge off Sunday night fear. My question is, in an already saturated market of unchallenging nostalgia fodder- can we not do better than 1970s knock-offs? History, late eighteenth-century history in particular, was full of dramatic new visions, complex hierarchies and human tensions and, like today, was populated by people who were neither wholly evil nor entirely virtuous. Everything, in short, that Poldark is missing.

Poldark aired on BBC One between March 8th and April 26th 2015. At the time of writing, episodes 5 to 8 are still available on BBC iPlayer. A DVD set of the series will be released on May 11th.