Sunday, January 14, 9 PM

One of the highest-rated dramas on PBS in 20 years, Victoria’s premiere season was hailed as a “gem” by The Hollywood Reporter and a “breakout hit” by Harpers Bazaar. The series returns for Season 2 on January 14. 

Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who) returns for a new season as the young queen who wants it all—romance, power, an heir, and personal freedom. Joining the cast in the new season is legendary actress Dame Diana Rigg (Game of Thrones), who plays the Duchess of Buccleuch, the court’s new Mistress of the Robes. Tom Hughes reprises his role as the queen’s dashing consort, Prince Albert, and Rufus Sewell returns as the smoldering Lord Melbourne.

Season 2 finds Victoria adapting to motherhood after the birth of her first child, a daughter (to the disappointment of many). Meanwhile, the disaster of the Anglo-Afghan War unfolds abroad, and the
catastrophic Irish potato famine begins to wreak havoc. In other foreign affairs, a royal state visit to France is in the offing.

Most intriguing to Prince Albert is the budding Industrial Revolution, which is now sweeping England. There is Charles Babbage’s mechanical calculator, a collaborative project with the bewitching Ada Lovelace,
daughter of the scandalous Lord Byron. Then there is William Fothergill Cooke’s miraculous electrical telegraph, not to mention Marc Isambard Brunel’s daring—and dangerous—Thames Tunnel.

What an extraordinary time to be Queen!

Victoria airs Sundays on WHRO TV 15 at 9 p.m.

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