'Vienna Blood' Sets Date for Final Season on PBS

When Vienna Blood initially debuted in January 2020 in the post-Sanditon slot, it was an awkward fit, to say the least. Not only did the heavily masculine Mystery of the Week series not fit tonally with Andrew Davies' Jane Austen fanfic, created from her final, unfinished novel, but it was also struggling to figure out what kind of show it wanted to be. The cast was brilliant, the chemistry super (save for one pairing), and the story of Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard), a middle-class Jewish psychoanalyst Freud disciple teaming up with Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt (Juergen Maurer), a working-class Austrian inspector, a new angle on the Victorian-era crime show. However, the stories clearly wanted it to be "just the facts of the case, ma'am." At the same time, the characters (and the actors) were far more suited to a cozy crime show where solving mysteries happens to be what people do for a living in between their delightful family dynamics.

Throughout the next two seasons, Vienna Blood slowly found its way out of the problems of the first. The supposed "love triangle" between Max, his one-time fiancee Clara (Luise von Finckh), and nerdy historian scientist Amelia Lydgate (first played by Jessica De Gouw, who had negative chemistry with Beard and then replaced with Lucy Griffiths, who merely had zero chemistry with him) was finally ditched, Clara was turned into a "plucky reporter," and Max's "one who got away," and the entire Liebermann family took their tight-knit bond and started helping Max solve crimes too.

It's almost a shame that the series is ending now that it finally figured out its formula, but the series, based on Frank Tallis's books, basically ran out of source material halfway through Season 3. Season 4 will, therefore, wrap everything up with one wholly original season-long mystery called "Mephisto Waltz."

Here is the final season synopsis:

Season 4 finds the unlikely detective duo in Vienna in 1909, where the double murder of a senior public official and an arms dealer in police custody has shaken the city to its core. Freudian psychoanalyst Max Liebermann has only just returned from a lecture tour in America when Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt asks for help in what could be the most dangerous case of their careers. 

Working together on an increasingly perilous investigation, Oskar and Max uncover a conspiracy that leads to the heart of the government. Can they stop the seditious mole known as “Mephisto” from destroying the Austro-Hungarian Empire? And will their lives ever be the same?

Season 4 will once again star Beard (Magpie Murders) and Maurer (Vorstadtweiber), reprising their roles as crime-fighting duo Doctor Max Liebermann and Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt and von Finckh (Deutschland 89) as Max's ex-fiance/plucky-reporter Clara Weiss. The rest of the core cast also returns for the final series, including Amelia Bullmore (Scott & Bailey) as Max's mother, Rachel Liebermann, Conleth Hill (Holding) as his father, Mendel Liebermann, and Charlene McKenna (Peaky Blinders) as Max's widowed sister, Leah Liebermann. 

Season 4 will also include Maria Kostlinger (Die Liebe Geld) as Oskar's sometimes-girlfriend, Therese Thanhofer, Robert Reinagl (Tatort) as Max's boss, Dr. Julius Jaeger, Johannes Zeiler (Murder By The Lake) as Professor Preil, Simon Hatzl (Your Christmas or Mine 2) as Direktor Strasser, Miriam Hie (SOKO Linz) as archiveist Lisa Linder, Raphael von Bargen (The Regime) as Commissioner von Bulow, and Josef Ellers (Vienna Crime Squad) as Sergeant Haussmann. Guest stars for the new season include Leonie Benesch (Around the World in 80 Days) and Ulrike Beimpold (The Wall).

Steve Thompson (Leonardo) wrote all installments, with director Umut Dağ returning to helm all episodes. The series was produced by the late Endor Productions, which has since shuttered.

Vienna Blood Season 4 will debut on most PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel at 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, January 5, 2024, one week before the Season 5 premieres of Miss Scarlet and All Creatures. Starting on premiere day, all four episodes will be available for members to watch as a binge (or as initially intended, i.e., two two-hour-long episodes) on PBS Passport. As always, check your local listings and streamers.