Ross Poldark returns to England after fighting in the American Revolution. His family and friends thought he was dead. The woman he hoped to marry is now engaged to his cousin. His father is dead, and the property he has inherited has been allowed to deteriorate. It is the late 1700s in Cornwall, England. This is a family drama, but is also about the challenges and conflicts between the rich and the poor. It is a time when fishermen are not catching much fish, tin and copper mines are closing down because prices are too low, but the price of food and rents are high. Ross faces the challenge of making his land productive, caring for the tenants who rely on him, and trying to win back the woman he loved - or finding a reason to live without her.

It's 1930s London and Robert Jekyll is a naive, sensitive young man finding his place in the world and moving away from the protection of his loving foster parents. As he begins to feel himself coming under the power of a darkness he cannot control, he realizes that all this time his parents were protecting him from his true self. Jekyll has inherited the curse of his grandfather, and when angered or in danger he undertakes a graphic and twisted transformation to become Hyde, a shadowy, brooding figure of incredible strength and agility; confident and fearless. As he tries to discover his past and search for a cure, Robert Jekyll is drawn deep into Hyde's world of monstrous creatures and freaks of nature.