Helen Mirren won an Oscar, deservedly, for playing Elizabeth II in “The Queen” in 2007. Beginning Monday on HBO, she plays another misunderstood woman occupying a throne — though a notably less lonely one this time — in the mini-series “Catherine the Great.”

She’s brought along her extraordinary gifts of subtlety and intelligence, and there are moments throughout the series when a wicked look or stifled emotion illuminates the Russian empress. She hasn’t brought along the writer Peter Morgan or the director Stephen Frears from “The Queen,” however, and in “Catherine the Great” she’s stranded, like a Fabergé egg in an airport gift shop.

Morgan, of course, has moved on to “The Crown,” where he has seemingly endless time to tell the story of Elizabeth II. Nigel Williams and Philip Martin, the writer and director of “Catherine the Great” (Williams wrote the mini-series “Elizabeth I” for Mirren; Martin has directed seven episodes of “The Crown”), don’t have that luxury. To encompass Catherine’s 34-year reign (1762-96) in four hours, they turn it into a love story: the tempestuous tale of Catherine and the courtier and general Grigory Potemkin (Jason Clarke), two crazy kids who can’t quit each other while they’re annexing Crimea, slaughtering Turks and neglecting to free the serfs.

It’s a reasonable decision (if not entirely true to the historical record), but even with performers as capable as Mirren and Clarke, the relationship never approaches the romantic velocity it needs to carry the series. There’s a lot of yelling and passionate making up, but it’s all a little distant and slightly embarrassing, like watching a couple you don’t know arguing in a parking lot. And despite gorgeous interiors and impressive backdrops, the show as a whole doesn’t have the sweep or grandeur that would let you overlook the glibness and superficiality of the script. It plays like a dime-store “Dangerous Liaisons,” with a touch of “Amadeus” in Joseph Quinn’s twitchy performance as Catherine’s ineffectual son.