Vienna Blood: (Vienna Blood 2)

Product Information

Produced by Endor Productions and MR Film for ORF (Austria) and ZDF (Germany), licensed to over 100 territories, including the UK (BBC), US (PBS), France (France 3) and Spain (Movistar), Vienna Blood has been a hit around the world. In the UK, the premiere of the second season was one of BBC Two’s top performing dramas of the year, while in France it was the No.1 show of the night, garnering a 14.6% share for France 3. In Austria, it delivered a huge 25% share for ORF and in Germany posted a market share of 12.3%, with high online viewing figures. It is absolutely critical that we get the balance right between a show that ultimately is a thriller, a murder story, but it also has a warmth. We want to be able to hang out with these two guys, we get to know their relationship, we love their banter and it's critical that this is right at the centre of it all, so the show is not too forbidding. The worlds they go into are incredibly dark. The first murder we encounter at the beginning of Episode Seven is really brutal. All murders are brutal but that one is particularly pernicious. It's important we find the heart of the show too. Oh yes. The thing I miss most about seeing patients - I’m a full-time writer now - is the detective work. Most psychological problems are quite straightforward, but complex cases require detection skills: identifying clues, following leads, digging deep for answers. Retrieving a repressed memory that explains a symptom is analogous to the culprit being exposed by Poirot in the drawing room! It can be as thrilling and as intellectually satisfying as the last scene in an Agatha Christie. A final piece of a puzzle falling into place. Clara’s father has passed away and she lives with her mother. A new love interest has emerged in her life in Series Two. Amelia Lydgate, Scientist - Lucy Griffiths

That’s an interesting question, because Rachel, Mendel and Leah Liebermann are slightly pretending that something dark and difficult isn’t coming, which is this rising wave of anti-semitism. But it is. Max is the one in the family who says, "Look, look this is coming and you need to pay attention to it".Starring Matthew Beard (Dracula, The Imitation Game, And When Did You Last See Your Father?) and Juergen Maurer (Vorstadtweiber, Tatort), Vienna Blood is set in 1900s Vienna - a hot bed of philosophy, science and art, where a clash of cultures and ideas play out in the city’s grand cafes and opera houses. Traumatic memories are pathogenic - they create disease. They don’t vanish, they remain an invisible force, affecting our behaviour.” In the first season there was certainly this sense that Max could do with looking at himself a little bit more, rather than psychoanalysing everyone else. Which I think is what he has done over the series, specifically in his relationships with Clara and his family. Thomas Oláh designs the costumes for Clara and it always feels like Christmas when I get invited to try them on. In Season One, Clara was kind of flirty, girlyish, the princess in the show. And then after what happened in the first season, we decided to make her a bit more grounded, a bit more like a woman. And in this season Clara has become more sophisticated. Clara now has costumes she can move in and work in and that helps people take her more seriously. But she always has a twist in her costumes. For example, a suit is blue but the cuffs are purple.

Possibly because it is so rich. It looks amazing, it's shot on location, so the mise-en-scène is gorgeous and authentic and it’s highly scored. It has a very cinematic feel. The way Robert shoots is very lush and plush. I think it has a glamour and a playfulness due to the relationship between Oskar and Max - I think it has humour, intrigue and beauty. The themes of Vienna Blood are to do with the motivations of humans; dreams, desires, what's going on in the world. I think those motivations are underpinning the crimes. I don't think Rachel is preoccupied with feminism at all. She's a woman of her time. I think her ambition would have been to make a good marriage and have healthy, successful, prosperous children. And she's got those things and for her I think that's fine. As for the next generation of women, I think she's probably happy for them to work. But I don't think she craves more than she has. If she does, it's never mentioned.

Frank Tallis, Author of the Liebermann Novels

Nisbet, Megan (14 December 2022). "BBC Vienna Blood cast list, locations and how many episodes in series 3". WalesOnline.

The clothes that Rachel Lieberman wears, because of her social class, are clothes you need help to get into. You couldn’t corset yourself or button yourself up so it’s a whole window into that kind of life; a life with servants and that hierarchical structure. A crime story is a puzzle but while you're watching a thriller there's this wonderful vicarious thrill of watching somebody solve the puzzle, but at the same time, experiencing the threat and the danger through somebody else's point of view. I think that's what makes crime drama universally popular.

Filmed in English and on location in Vienna and Budapest, season three is directed by Academy Award® and Emmy® nominee Robert Dornhelm (Anne Frank: The Whole Story) and stars Matthew Beard (The Imitation Game, Dracula, Avenue 5) as Max Liebermann, and Juergen Maurer (Vorstadtweiber, Tatort) as Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt. All we know up to Season Two is that Oskar had a sad past with his wife and his late daughter. In Season Three, we’ll experience Oskar from another side. I think he's a straightforward, protective man who just wants to be with somebody he can love, adore and protect. He wouldn't go and search for a date, but if it falls into his lap, as we say, I think he would take it. And there might be someone showing up in Season Three which is very exciting for me!

The first is that Max and Oskar have both moved on in their personal lives. Max has started his own private practice - emulating Freud very much, he’s now taking private clients for psychoanalysis sessions. When we met him in the first series he was just working in the hospital, now he has his own private practice. And that gives us some really good drama because in the first episode of the new series he has his first private patient and it’s his patient who’s involved in the murder. So you can see Max’s world expanding. I guess for anyone who has any profession, there are moments when you can't help but bring your professional life into your personal life. And there is a moment in the series where Max offers advice to Oskar in a way that might be a bit more than friendship, that is sort of based in a psychological understanding. But I think Max is quite good at reigning it in. He knows Oskar doesn't want that. And I think it would be incredibly annoying for a friend to psychoanalyse you all the time! Fiery and defensive, Leah is particularly protective of her close friend Clara. Leah has a tendency to deliver criticisms of Max’s behaviour with lashings of sarcasm. Rachel Liebermann, Max’s mother - Amelia Bullmore When the series first starts (in the year 1902), Max is in his late twenties and a disciple of Freud. He goes to Freud’s apartment on Wednesday nights to have meetings. Him and some other doctors talk about their observations on the darker side that humans have.For me this season is about Clara focusing on herself and standing her ground. She has learnt that relying on men is not everything, and that there's only space for love when she's at eye level with men and not relying on them. The third episode of the new series is based on your novel Darkness Rising and explores religious conflict in different guises particularly antisemitism. Is religious fervour a subject which you’re especially drawn to explore?