While the second series of Poldark only began on BBC One on Sunday night, star Aidan Turner is already in front of the cameras for season three with fans promised "new heights of conflict, feuding, passion and drama".
Turner and co-stars Eleanor Tomlinson (Demelza) and Heida Reed (Elizabeth) will be joined by three new cast members, Harry Richardson and Tom York, who will play Demelza's brothers; and Ellise Chappell, who will play Elizabeth's cousin.
"All are major players in the next volume of Winston Graham [author of the Poldark books] and Debbie Horsfield's [series writer and executive producer] saga," said Karen Thrussell, the executive producer of Poldark's production company Mammoth Screen.
Horsfield revealed that Turner's titular hero is older but not necessarily wiser in the third series.
"His recklessness sometimes costs him, and his loved ones, dear," she said. "We're in for a rollercoaster ride where the stakes have never been higher."
Filming on the nine-episode series will continue in Cornwall and Bristol in the coming months for transmission on BBC One next year.
Turner may have claimed recently that he had to fight to keep his clothes on in the second season, but viewers breathed a sigh of relief when the most famous torso on TV made a welcome reappearance on Sunday.
The 33-year-old Dubliner sent his heartthrob status into outer orbit when he flaunted his honed physique in several episodes of the first series of the period drama - with his topless scything scene regarded by many as the TV moment of the year. (Turner won the Impact Award at Britain's National Television Awards in January for the infamous scene and said he was "confused" but "delighted" with the award.)
The finale of the first season saw Poldark arrested for murder as he and wife Demelza faced the devastation of losing their child. The new series has picked up where it left off, with Demelza left bereft on a cliff-top and the threat of the death penalty hanging over her husband.
Although the new series was set in the colder Cornish Winter, there was widespread panic among Turner's legion of female fans that he would be obliged to keep his shirt on - for warmth if nothing else.
Luckily, some hardcore tin mining, to take his mind off his impending trial, put paid to those fears.
"To the mine, where it's still possible to do an honest day's work," he declared about twenty minutes into the first episode and before you know it, Ross was deep in the pits minus his top as he chiselled the rocks with a pickaxe.
It didn't take long for viewers to adjust their eyes to the dark, it seems.
#Poldark Ep 1
— Will Leahy (@willleahy) September 4, 2016
No. of shirtless Ross scenes = 2
No. of male viewers joining gyms tomorrow = 3.7 million
lool Ross Poldark in the Mine ☘☘😆☘☘
— KC (@raglanhall1808) September 5, 2016
So it only took him 20 minutes to get shirtless this season. We're making progress. #Poldark
— Abi Pace (@AbiPace) September 5, 2016
when poldark started mining shirtless and you just #Poldark pic.twitter.com/dcev9gisMp
— eleanor (@tomhoIIandx) September 4, 2016
Ahem #Poldark putting the "sexy" back into Tin Mining. Approx 3 minutes 16 seconds of shirtless-ness. pic.twitter.com/2s7PEzCQ3p
— Jennifer (@Miss_Space_Geek) September 5, 2016
Sunday nights just got so much better topless mining is the way to go #Poldark
— Paula martin (@Tombenoly) September 4, 2016
Oh, hello sweaty mining #Poldark pic.twitter.com/W3bZ7oVSOd
— Amanda (@TinkonBrink) September 4, 2016
Though there's always one.
Am I the only one to remain unmoved by Aidan Turner in Poldark? He's hot but preferred him suited, Irish & moody in Agatha Christie.
— Lauren (@laurenbigeejit) September 5, 2016
