Max isn’t the only one dealing with micro- and macro-aggressions. Who could blame him for showing off his brilliance just a little, though? After all, when his mother talks about him, she can honestly brag about her son, the doctor! Oskar’s gruffness and Max’s insufferability slowly fade away as each gains more respect and affection for the other. Max is a haughty, slightly bratty know-it-all whose sophisticated understanding of human psychology often comes off as a magic trick. Meanwhile, Oskar’s initial annoyance at Max’s often-impertinent presence at his crime scenes isn’t rooted in bigotry at all, but in his having to be responsible for the safety of a rather effete rich boy in the midst of baffling, dangerous murder investigations. Oskar never confronts their antisemitism directly, though he does point out that Max’s seemingly strange methods produce consistent results. Police higher-ups such as Commissioner Strasser and the supercilious Inspector Von Bülow are pleasant enough to Max’s face, while routinely calling him “the Jew doctor” and alluding to the infamous “slyness” of our “race” in conversations with Oskar. Profiling murderers is commonplace now, but, in 1906, using behavioral observation to understand the motives behind bizarre murders and talk therapy to process traumatic experiences were considered disreputable. Unfortunately, this benefit is undercut by everyone else’s suspicion of Max’s groundbreaking methods. I’ve never seen anything like it on English-language TV before.įrom the very first episode, we see that wealth and educational attainment provide Max and his family some cosmetic insulation against the antisemitic rhetoric so commonplace at the time. ![]() “Vienna Blood” is not a Jewish show, which makes its investment in dramatizing pre-Shoah Jewish life outside the shtetl all the more remarkable. Max Liebermann, a young Jewish Freudian trained in England, played by Matthew Beard).Īs this odd couple find their endearing way towards a successful crime-fighting partnership, the murders of the week sit side-by-side with the series’ overarching plot across two seasons: the increasingly uneasy place held by even the most affluent and well-educated Jews in Austria-Hungary prior to the first World War. “Vienna Blood” offers a freshened-up spin on the classic Sherlockian pairing of a gruff but caring veteran detective (Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt, played by Austrian actor Jüergen Maurer) and a fish out of water who helps him see and solve crimes in a fresh way (Dr. The engrossing crime procedural - an adaptation of the “Liebermann Papers” novels by Frank Tallis that was recently picked up for a third season - is deeply invested in depicting Jewish life in 1906 Vienna. ![]() Occasionally, though, a show does something so out of the ordinary that you can’t help but sit up and take notice. Yes, they can be formulaic, and even a little repetitive, but the comforting predictability of these stories is a core part of their appeal. Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey, Inspector Morse, Phryne Fisher, I’ll watch them all day long. ![]() I started religiously watching the TV adaptations of Sherlock Holmes stories starring Jeremy Brett at 8 or 9, and never looked back.
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