Period Mystery 'Vienna Blood' Renewed For Season 2

When Vienna Blood debuted back in January of 2020, it was an exciting addition to the PBS mystery line-up. Set in 1910s Vienna, in the years before the Great War tore the Austria-Hungarian empire apart, this series explores a time and place in the grip of rising nationalism, and blindness to where it might lead. It also brought viewers a fascinating duo of working-class detective Oskar Rheinhard (Juergen Maurer) and upper-class British immigrant Max Liebermann (Matthew Beard). The latter's beliefs in the methods of Sigmund Freud and Jewish background make him a fish out of water in high society.

The series initially ran three feature-length episodes in the UK and split into six installments for the PBS broadcast. It seems to have done well enough in both places that a second season has now been commissioned. According to Deadline, the new set of feature-length episodes (once again, three in all) will be produced by Germany’s ZDF and Austria’s ORF, and air on BBC Two in the U.K. and on PBS here in America. There also won't be much of a delay in starting. With COVID-19 mostly under control in Austria, filming for the new season will be able to begin later this month, with an eye on an early 2021 premiere.

The splitting of episodes into six parts here in America sometimes leads the series to feel uneven in its debut run. That's partly due to the very sudden cut-offs at the end of the odd-numbered episodes to divide the stories evenly. But also, it was because Vienna Blood didn't always seem to know what it wanted to be.