‘Vienna Blood’ season 4 review: A new format provides a game-changing, full-circle narrative
Where the previous three seasons of the BBC’s historical, Austrian-set crime series were made up of separate, case-of-the-week type episodes, Vienna Blood season 4 gives us one major, overarching narrative across four episodes (or two, depending on where you’re located), and the result is engrossing, to say the least.
This is Vienna Blood as you’ve never seen it before, as a double murder and a massive conspiracy led by a mysterious figure known only as “Mephisto” threaten to topple the very foundations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Of course, the major draw of Vienna Blood hasn’t necessarily always been the cases under investigation but rather the odd-couple pairing who investigate them. Matthew Beard’s Freudian psychoanalyst Max Liebermann and Juergen Maurer’s gruff but undeniably sincere Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt are a compelling, charming, and often hilarious duo.
Max’s ideas and his fondness for profiling are still, even three seasons later, too modern for parts of 20th-century Vienna police work. Oskar is one of the few who sees the merit in understanding a killer’s mind instead of solely trying to figure out their motive. That understanding of Max’s work becomes more important than ever in season 4 as, due to unforeseen circumstances, Oskar is forced to work part of this season’s singular, sprawling case by himself. The strength of Oskar and Max’s relationship has never been more apparent, nor has their reliance on one another. Oskar understands Max through and through, and one clever storytelling device proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.
What Vienna Blood achieves in season 4 is a narrative where the case is equally as compelling as the characters that inhabit this world. I’ve never been more invested in the outcome, even though I’ve been a fan of the show since the start. The shift in format is surprising yet wonderfully effective, and it’s clear the actors themselves reveled in the change in pace, too. There’s more room for major set pieces this time, and the stakes are at an all-time high. The lush casino setting and the gloomy, twisting maze of caves beneath it are particular standouts. You can tell the whole cast, including Charlene McKenna, who plays Max’s sister Leah, and Luise von Finckh, who plays Max’s sort-of-ex and budding journalist Clara, had a ball filming those scenes. They could immerse themselves in the story more fully than during previous seasons.
When I spoke to Beard and Maurer during a press roundtable in December, they wholeheartedly agreed that as actors, they preferred the new season’s continuous narrative structure. Not only did it allow the show to include an actual heart-stopping cliffhanger and a more mysterious villain, but it also gave them a chance to fully immerse themselves in this one case and storyline rather than juggling multiple cases while filming. “[It’s] always the horizontal telling of the story that makes it interesting. It’s always the arc that allows you as an actor to develop,” Maurer explained, while Beard reiterated:
“When we shoot three episodes, each with a different case, we shoot them all at the same time. And often we might do a day in the police station with all three episodes filming on the same day. And actually these plots are so complicated, and just trying to keep all of the series in your head on the same filming day was difficult. So actually what I really liked on this one was just having one plot to focus on and to zone in on and to know what you were doing all day.”
Changing the format this late in the game was risky, but it certainly paid off. Vienna Blood season 4 amplifies all the best parts of the show. If you loved this series before, you’ll love it even more now.
Vienna Blood season 4 premieres in the U.S. on PBS and the PBS app on January 5, 2025, with new episodes dropping weekly until January 26. The full season is available now in the U.K. on BBC iPlayer.
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