BATTLE OF THE SUNDAY HUNKS AUTUMN’S BODICE RIPPERS GO HEAD TO HEAD

(Aidan Turner) With gleaming black curls and a rippling sixpack, Ross Poldark quickly became the king of Sunday-night totty after the show premiered last year. A swashbuckling hero who returns from the American Revolution to find his cousin shacked up with his childhood sweetheart, Poldark presides over the family mine with exactly the kind of brooding intensity one expects of man who spends life partially dressed. (Kyle Soller) Scheming and disloyal Francis, Ross’s ne’er-dowell cousin, has made quite the name for himself around their town in Cornwall. Though he lacks the bronzed glow of his relative – presumably due to his negligent attitude towards shirtless scything – his piercing blue eyes and reckless behaviour have boosted his lust factor for some viewers. (Rufus Sewell, below) Well dressed. Leader of a nation. Impeccable cheekbones. It’s no wonder viewers have been swooning over Sewell’s Lord Melbourne. Sewell’s turn as the Whig prime minister is one of his most (aesthetically) pleasing roles yet, with one Twitter fan noting that “If Lord Melbourne had looked like Rufus Sewell in real life, I doubt Albert would’ve got a look in’. (Tom Hughes) For those hoping history will be re-written so that dashing Lord Melbourne might join the monarchy, fear not, as Tom Hughes’s Prince Albert won’t disappoint. With brains as well as brawn (he fought in the American Civil War as well as presiding over the Society for the Extinction of Slavery), the good looks of Queen Victoria’s husband are also said to have won over Jenna Coleman, who plays his wife, off-screen.