What's on TV: Monday, April 15
Queen Victoria and Her Nine Children
SBS, 7.35pm
At first glance, this British documentary series about the relationship between the 19th century monarch and her nine children has a familiar look: shots of historic residences and formal portraits cut together with out-of-focus dramatic re-creations where the actor has their back to the camera, with talking-head punctuation from historians and biographers. But what's being said is somewhat different, offering up – with comparative bluntness – a large list of issues that include depression, obesity, scorned children, and a possible illegitimate royal child.
Turns out the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha family was a tabloid magazine's dream come true. After a penitentiary-style upbringing, the widowed Victoria's children rebelled into adulthood, with oldest son Bertie becoming a dilettante who freely smoked, drank, gambled, and visited brothels in contravention of his disapproving mother's virtuous standards.
Even when he did his royal duty by fathering male heirs with his wife, Victoria was unimpressed. "Miserable, puny children," she wrote of the future King George V and his siblings. The tone sits between critical reappraisal and celebrity scandal, and frankly there's no shortage of juicy material. No wonder her various descendants across Europe's royal houses started World War I.
The Passage
Seven, Monday, 9pm
You're going to have to accept some broad strokes in the first episode of this apocalyptic vampire drama, starting with a research trip to the mountains of Bolivia that ends with a scientist, Dr Tim Fanning (Jamie McShane), getting killed by an undead creature's bite but returning to life with a hunger for human blood.
He becomes the first research subject at a top-secret facility, but when the government program kidnaps 10-year-old orphan Amy Bellafonte (Saniyya Sidney) for testing, federal agent Brad Wolgast (Mark-Paul Gosselaar) can't go through with it. Even as Fanning and his fellow test subject haunt the dreams of their jailers, the former soldier and defiant kid are bonding on the run. This adaptation of Justin Cronin's best-selling novel is plot-packed, but the horror elements are perfunctory. It needs better chills.