Can a woman outsmart a man? That was the basic question behind tonight’s LRTC, and it took an hour to deliver the answer everyone must have been expecting: yes. Meanwhile, dear old Alf was learning his letters – not to mention his syllables – while trying to maintain the semblance of disinterest in Laura by pretending to have another girl – the mysterious and non-existent “Rose” – in tow.

There’s a deal more to Dorcas Lane than meets the eye. She’s not held down that job at the Post Office for so many years without learning a thing or two about human nature. So it’s no big deal for her to take on the upstart Dowland in the parish elections, even though he thinks he’s all that.

In fact I did wonder what he was doing addressing a gathering of largely women-folk, when at this time in history it was only the men who could vote. Turns out “women of property” were eligible too, which conveniently explains how Dorcas was able to stand. Even though she knew from the outset she had no real chance of winning. That didn’t stop her campaigning though. But like all truly powerful people, her campaign was both overt and covert. For while she was attending meetings with the overbearing Dowland, and popping in to the local ale house to berate the menfolk while they downed their evening pints, at the same time she was attending the last meeting of the outgoing parish council and persuading them to pass into law a fixed rent of a shilling a week for any new properties built in the parish for the next twenty years.

Properties like the ones Dowland is already committed to build. Oh-oh! Maybe he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.

Meanwhile there’s a lovely sub-text going on between Mr and Mrs Timmins. Him with his high-falutin’ principles, and her with her simple womanly wiles, hard work and love letters, the most recent of which, penned during the programme, wakes Robert up to the wonder of his marriage and puts the world back on its axis. A simple, romantic, and fundamentally moving sideline to the main story that for me made this a stand-out episode.

I can’t leave this review without mentioning Mark Heap’s brilliant approach to the radical shift in delivery technology that is the Post Office bike. Taking, as always, a sideways slant on life, he elects to walk his round pushing the bike, which consequently takes much longer than if the bike had not been involved at all. Brilliant but gently humour that adds another welcome dimension to the overall warm comfort factor that is Lark Rise to Candleford.

It’s with extreme trepidation that I read the BBC is abandoning traditional costume dramas for 2009. Exactly what will replace them remains to be seen, but it’ll be a shame if this move marks the end for LRTC which continues to delight and to provide exactly the right level of entertainment for a Sunday night: visually stimulating and intellectually relaxing.