History Series / ViennaBlood

The show was renewed for a second season, to air in 2021.

* HistoricalInJoke: A business associate tells Mendel Liebermann that "we decide who is Jewish and who is not." This is a quote later attributed to Hermann Goering.

* BittersweetEnding: For season one. [[spoiler:Max loses his position at the hospital because Dr. Gruner is offended that Max brought in an outside expert (Amelia) to do forensics tests on Thomas Zelenka's body (which didn't turn up anything), but he's found working with the police as a forensic psychologist to be more fulfilling anyway. He and Clara break up, but he's found a new attraction to Amelia, who seems receptive. For Oskar it's mostly all "bitter": he's PassedOverForPromotion because his superior and his rival are both alumni of the MilitaryAcademy whose reputation the Case of the Week just ruined, and his wife leaves him for good. But he's finally starting to get over the death of their daughter.]]

* WeddingRingRemoval: Elena leaves Oskar for good at the end of episode 3, leaving her wedding ring on the dining room table.

* DuelToTheDeath: An army officer challenges Max to a duel after Max punches him in the face after walking in on him [[AttemptedRape attempting to rape Clara]]. Max accepts after finding he can't simply have the man arrested because the Austrian justice system considers it "her word against his", [[JusticeByOtherLegalMeans planning to instead provoke his opponent into confessing to the Murder of the Week before the shots are fired]]. [[spoiler:The officer is innocent of ''that'' crime, and Max has EurekaMoment about the real killer and runs off the field, the duel forgotten.]]

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: A curious example as the setting predates the actual NSDAP by almost twenty years, but German ultranationalism and antisemitism are recurring themes: the Liebermanns are looked down on by many upper-class Viennese for being Jewish, and the SerialKiller in "Queen of the Night" targets non-German immigrants ([[spoiler:or so it seems]]) leaves a CallingCard in the form of a symbol from one group's pamphlet--which even uses the term "Aryan race" (it predates the Nazis) and references the notion of Austria merging with Germany.

* BittersweetEnding: For season one. [[spoiler:Max loses his position at the hospital because Dr. Gruner is offended that Max brought in an outside expert (Amelia) to do forensics tests on Thomas Zelenka's body (which didn't turn up anything), but he's found working with the police to be more fulfilling anyway. He and Clara break up, but he's found a new attraction to Amelia, who seems receptive. For Oskar it's mostly all "bitter": he's PassedOverForPromotion because his superior and his rival are both alumni of the MilitaryAcademy whose reputation the Case of the Week just ruined, and his wife leaves him for good. But he's finally starting to get over the death of their daughter.]]

It is a series of detective dramas, based on the ''Liebermann Papers'' series of novels by Frank Tallis. The setting is Vienna, Austria in 1906--Franz Joseph is emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler will soon come to town to study art, and UsefulNotes/WorldWarI is just a few years away. Max Liebermann is a British-educated medical student who has returned to Vienna to serve as an intern in a mental asylum. After attending a lecture by UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Max becomes an instant convert and proponent of the new science of psychiatry.

Max is interested in the intersection of psychiatry and criminal investigation. He gets his father to pull some strings and has himself inserted into the Vienna police, where he is attached to Detective Oskar Reinhardt. Reinhardt is an intense, driven man, haunted by past tragedy, pushed by demanding superiors. He takes an early dislike to insufferable know-it-all Max, but sure enough, they eventually form an effective partnership.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Max is portrayed as thoughtful and enlightened for his belief in and use of Freudian psychology and the "talking cure". His supervising physician Gruner is portrayed as a brutal torturer for his use of shock therapy--and [[ElectroconvulsiveTherapyIsTorture electroconvulsive therapy really is torture]] if it's done without anesthesia and muscle relaxants. Still, latter-day science has shown ECT to be really useful for quite a few mental conditions, while Freudian psychology is now dismissed as nonsense. And within the show, Gruner's brutal therapy actually does cure Amelia's dissociative disorder.

* TitledAfterTheSong: The series is titled after a literal translation of title of the Strauss waltz "Wiener Blut", later given lyrics for an operetta of the same title. In the song and operetta, this has no sinister connotations, being in a context of "I love Vienna because I've got Viennese blood in my veins".

* TheBookCipher: Max discovers that his nephew Daniel was writing something in code. He figures out that it was a book cipher but can't decode it because he doesn't have the book.

* ToplessnessFromTheBack: Mixed with FanDisservice as Max, who has accompanied a deranged Amelia to the asylum after her public breakdown, sees her none-too-gently stripped as she's admitted.

* AudibleSharpness: There's quite the loud, dramatic ''zing'' on the soundtrack when Olbricht, the murderer, yanks his cavalry saber out of its scabbard in the climactic scene.

It is a series of detective dramas, based on the ''Liebermann Papers'' series of novels by Frank Tallis. The setting is Vienna, Austria around the beginning of the 1900s--Franz Joseph is emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler will soon come to town to study art, and UsefulNotes/WorldWarI is just a few years away. Max Liebermann is a British-educated medical student who has returned to Vienna to serve as an intern in a mental asylum. After attending a lecture by UsefulNotes/SigmundFreud Max becomes an instant convert and proponent of the new science of psychiatry.