Is The Knick worth watching? Soderbergh's two-season medical drama, explained
If you have any tolerance for graphic surgery scenes and unhappy people in beautiful period settings, The Knick is one of the best shows of the 2010s that almost nobody watched.
The basics
The Knick aired on Cinemax in 2014–2015. Two seasons, 20 episodes total (10 per season). It was created by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler and stars Clive Owen as Dr. John Thackery, a brilliant, cocaine-addicted chief surgeon at the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York City around the year 1900.
Steven Soderbergh didn't just direct the show — he directed every single episode of both seasons, and also served as cinematographer and editor under his usual pseudonyms. This is a rare thing in television, and the result is a show that feels like a 20-hour film rather than a collection of episodes.
What it's about
On the surface, it's a medical drama. Thackery and his colleagues operate on patients in an era before antibiotics, before blood typing was fully understood, before most of what we consider basic medicine existed. The surgery scenes are detailed and unflinching — if you're squeamish, this show will test you.
But the medicine is really a lens for everything else: racism (Dr. Algernon Edwards, played by André Holland, is a brilliant Black surgeon forced to operate in secret in the hospital basement), corruption, class warfare, immigration, addiction, and the question of what "progress" actually costs. Season 2 goes even further, diving into the eugenics movement and the ways institutional power destroys the people it claims to help.
Why it's underseen
Cinemax. That's the honest answer. Despite being produced under the HBO umbrella, The Knick was placed on the smaller sibling network, which most viewers associate with action B-movies. The show was cancelled not because of quality but because Cinemax eventually exited original programming entirely.
What the critics said
Season 1 holds an 87% on Rotten Tomatoes. Season 2 holds 97%. Metacritic has season 1 at 78 (Generally Favorable). The critical consensus on season 2 calls it "addictive" with "stunning visuals, knockout performances, and disturbing moments adding up to a period drama that's anything but dated." Those numbers, for a show many people have never heard of, tell you everything.
Should you commit?
Two seasons is a manageable commitment. There's no cliffhanger ending — the show concludes its story. Owen's performance is magnetic, Soderbergh's direction is consistently inventive, and the electronic score by Cliff Martinez (which sounds nothing like 1900 and somehow fits perfectly) makes the whole thing feel unlike anything else on television. It's not comfort viewing, but it is exceptional television.