The Serpent BBC1, 9pm

Younger Doctor Who fans be warned: don’t stay up for the latest starring role for the actress who sprang to fame as the Time Lord’s assistant Clara before claiming the crown of ITV’s Queen Victoria.

In a decidedly adult, eight-part truecrime drama set during the 1970s, Jenna Coleman plays Marie-Andrée Leclerc, a Canadian traveller and accomplice to Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim, star of the 2009 French crime drama A Prophet, right with Coleman), a serial killer responsible for at least a dozen murders as he preyed on vulnerable Western tourists travelling across Asia.

As we switch back and forth between the crimes and the subsequent investigation by Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle) into the disappearances, the chilling, if fascinating, tale is burnished with all the fashion style of the period and a music soundtrack to match.