Vienna Blood series 2: Everything to expect as BBC crime drama returns

Psychotherapist Max Libermann and detective Oskar Reinhardt are back for more crime-solving in Vienna (Picture: BBC/Endor Productions/MR Film/Petro Domenigg)

There’s a magical moment where great crime-solving partnerships click into place — from Sherlock and Watson to Poirot and Hastings.

A telling scene in the new series of Vienna Blood marks that moment for criminal psychotherapist Max Liebermann and his partner in (solving) crime, grizzly detective Oskar Rheinhardt.

It shows the bookish Max and worldly wise Oskar recreating a crime scenario by locking arms for a waltz.

Without spoiling the moment, the choice of who leads speaks volumes about the dynamic of this interesting spin on the buddy crime-cracking relationship.

‘I’m glad you picked up on that scene, it wasn’t in the script to start with, it just happened while we were filming,’ says Matthew Beard, who returns as Liebermann opposite Juergen Maurer’s Rheinhardt.

Max and Oskar waltz to solve a case (Picture: BBC/Endor Productions/MR Film/Petro Domenigg)

‘The stories in Vienna Blood can be very intense and complicated, and I think that scene shows we’ve got to the point where we can inject a spot of humour.’

It’s Max and Oskar’s relationship that pulses through Vienna Blood, which won a devoted following on its first outing, as Max adds his psychological insight to Oskar’s more prosaic police work.

‘You expect every crime drama to include a criminal profiler in it these days but in Vienna at that time it was a new idea,’ says Beard. ‘In fact, it was pretty much the birth of criminal profling as we’ve come to know it.’

Vienna Blood is set in the early days when Sigmund Freud’s ideas were fresh and new and Vienna itself was bursting with ideas in everything from art and architecture to psychology and science. In the 1900s, it was a city buzzing with ideas.

Lucy Griffiths joins the cast as crime-scene analyst Amelia Lyndgate (Picture: BBC/Endor Productions/MR Film/Petro Domenigg)

‘A lot of people think Freud is obsessed with sex but I studied Freud at university and being able to explore his world and his ideas was a major draw for me,’ adds Beard.

But while he’s a hotshot at working out what goes on in other minds, what’s ticking away in his own can paralyse Max at times. Fans of series one will remember that his love life seriously stalled.

As series two opens he’s still prevaricating and analysing why he can’t move things on with crime-scene analyst Amelia (Lucy Griffiths) despite their mutual attraction.

‘Yes, he’s still standing back and gazing into the distance — he needs to take action,’ says Beard with a chuckle. ‘Max is someone who prefers to analyse other people’s lives rather than living out his own. He’s not comfortable with that in the least.’

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Based on the books of Frank Tallis, one of the intriguing features of Vienna Blood is the way dream sequences play a part, with Max often wandering through the imagination of the characters he’s investigating. It’s a clever sleight of mind that lends a fresh edge to what could, on the surface, appear a standard period drama. Did making the series have an impact on his own dream life?

‘The English actors on the set did talk about their dreams but, to be honest, I was so tired from filming that I didn’t dream at all,’ he says. ‘And really, your dreams are only interesting to yourself, aren’t they? They’re really boring for anyone who has to listen to them.’

Now what on earth would Max make of that?

Series one of Vienna Blood is on iPlayer now. Series two will be available on BBC2 and iPlayer on December 10.

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