History Series / ViennaBlood

[[caption-width-right:350:Inspector Oskar Reinhardt (Jurgen Maurer) and Dr. Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard)[[/note]]]]

[[caption-width-right:302:Inspector Oskar Reinhardt (Jurgen Maurer) and Dr. Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard)[[/note]]]]

* SequelHook: The last scene of the second season has Clara coming to Max's office to thank him for solving the case and getting her soon-to-be brother-in-law off the hook. Max accepts her thanks, they hug--and then they kiss. Naturally at that exact moment Amelia comes up in a carriage. She sees Max and Clara kissing and tells her driver to keep going, and on that note the season ends.

* 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.

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 (Creator/MatthewBeard) is a British-born medical student whose family moved to Vienna when he was young, and serves 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.

* NeverOneMurder: In "Darkness Rising", Brother David is killed before he can meet with Max to tell him what really happened when the other monk was murdered.

Season 3 (2022): Set in 1908. Max has made enough of a reputation in the field of psychology that he's published a book and is giving book signings. Meanwhile, he's still drawn to Clara, who is starting a career of her own as a reporter.

** In the final episode of the third season, a major suspect is a leading member of a right-wing pan-Germanic nationalist society that doesn't like Jews (like Max) or Slavic-speakers (like Oskar). [[spoiler:It turns out that the Hapsburg secret service were deliberately trying to frame him as the murderer knowing that Oskar and Max would be prejudiced against him.]]

* "The God of Shadows": What is the connection between the paranoid terrors of an old soldier who Max is asked to treat, and the spate of burglaries of wealthy homes that Oskar has been ordered to solve?

Season 3 (2022): Set in 1908.

* SmartPeoplePlayChess: In third season premiere "Deadly Communion", the coroner is shown fiddling with a chess set in the morgue.

* StudentsSecretSociety: In episode 3, Max Liebermann's nephew starts [[SelfHarm cutting himself]] at the same time that Max and Oskar Reinhardt open an investigation into the death of a cadet at the local MilitarySchool, also attended by the nephew. Both incidents turn out to be connected to hazing rituals conducted by a secret fraternity on the campus. [[spoiler:In the end, Oskar is PassedOverForPromotion for embarrassing the school, because both [[DaChief his superior Herr Strasser]] and his rival for the promotion Inspector von Bulow [[{{Nepotism}} were members of the fraternity]].]]

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

* ButchLesbian: In "Death is Now a Welcome Guest", the film studio producer is a short-haired woman who wears mens' suits and talks with bitter knowingness about the dead actress's love of making people fall in love with her.

** In the final episode of the third season, a major suspect is a leading member of a right-wing pan-German nationalist society that doesn't like Jews (like Max) or Slavic-speakers (like Oskar). [[spoiler:It turns out that the Hapsburg secret service were deliberately trying to frame him as the murderer knowing that Oskar and Max would be prejudiced against him.]]

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: A curious example as the setting predates the actual NSDAP by almost twenty years, but German ultranationalism and antisemitism are recurring themes in season 1: 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]]) and 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.

* ChuckCunninghamSyndrom: Amelia is completely absent from the third season, with Max now once again involved in a vaguely flirtatious relationship with his ex-fiancee Clara.

"Deadly Communion": A SerialKiller becomes fixated on Max as the one man who might understand him.
"The God of Shadows": What is the connection between the paranoid terrors of an old soldier who Max is asked to treat, and the spate of burglaries of wealthy homes that Oskar has been ordered to solve?

''Vienna Blood'' is a BBC limited series that ran for two seasons, in 2019 and 2021, lasting three 90-minute episodes each. (When it ran in the United States on PBS the episodes were shown in two parts, making a total of six per season.)

Season 3 (2022):

A third season has been confirmed.

* AnswerCut: In need of a second for his duel in episode 2, Max says that he needs a policeman in order to arrest Hafner, but that Oskar can't do it because they already know he's a cop. Max then looks to his left and Oskar says "No, no!" Cut to von Bulow, Oskar's archrival in the department, who does in fact serve as Max's second.

** Music/GustavMahler himself shows up to play piano for a musical performance in "The Last Seance". The audience doesn't applaud because he's a Jew.
** "The Devil's Kiss" brings in the Black Hand, the Serbian ultranationalist group that masterminded the assassination of Kaiser Franz Joseph's son Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife seven years later, sparking off UsefulNotes/WorldWarI. The episode mentions their involvement in the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Coup_(Serbia) May Coup]] against the Serbian royal family.

* NeverTheObviousSuspect: Isaak Korngold in "Darkness Rising" publicly argued with the AssholeVictim over an anti-Semitic op-ed the latter wrote, even threw an ashtray at him saying he should be stoned to death. After the victim is found ''actually'' stoned to death, Isaak is arrested by Oskar but swears he didn't do it. After his brother Jonas is forced to sell their bank to Herr Strobl, the latter finds a curse on the dead monk in Hebrew in the Korngolds' safe. [[spoiler:Isaak is, of course, innocent: Amelia's boss [[AccidentalMurder killed the monk by accident]] while fighting with him over a stolen relic, then his confidant Herr Strobl rigged the scene and planted the fake curse to cement the FrameUp.]]

--> "Profile"? What the hell is he talking about?

The Liebermanns are Jewish, and the anti-Semitism of early 20th-century Vienna is a running theme. Creator/ConlethHill plays Max's father Mendel, a wealthy clothing merchant who is trying to gain entry into upper-crust Viennese society. Creator/JessicaDeGouw appeared in the first season as Amelia, a chemist whom Max is attracted to. (The role was recast with Lucy Griffiths for Season 2.)