I have just finished watching Season 1 of The Knick right through, so it's time to comment.
For some reason I've been blundering around Soderbergh's work lately, and it's an interesting mix. He can be accused of having a somewhat 'cold' style, but I don't mind it.
However, this particular concoction feels, at times, like it could have been acted by animatronic androids. Even given the stiff-collared behavioural norms of 1900 western society, there is only a tiny colour-palette of emotional range conveyed here.
Clive Owen does his best, with a thoroughly unlikeable character, and pretty much carries the show, along with André Holland.
Eve Hewson's single facial expression, for the entire series, eventually had me wanting another cast member to slap her, hard - just to get some kind of reaction out of her, beyond 'stare blankly, like a goldfish'.
Everyone else... basically just executes their utterly rigid roles to the best of their ability.
As a result - and especially given some of the idiocies present in the later plot - the final effect is rather cartoony: and a very dire and dreary cartoon, at that.
I've been looking up the historical background of 'The Knick', and that, for me, has been the thing that has kept me watching - the fact, threaded in through the fiction: 'Typhoid' Mary really was a stupid, stupid idiot, great strides were made with anaesthetics, the first US stirrings of state care and a responsible social contract emerged, etc...
Oh, and the music - at first I found it grating, but it appears this was because, at first, it was terrible. As the episodes went on, Cliff Martinez seemed to actually find some more settings on his Groovebox, and do some better composing. He never got anywhere near somebody like, say, Brian Reitzel, but he managed some quite pacey accompaniments here and there.
In the end, in spite of all its faults, I do have to say 'The Knick' is watchable Television, particularly if - like me - you are interested in medical history. But it could have been so much more.
I am actually enthusiastic about Season 2, if it gets that far: I want to see if The Knick inflates... or collapses.
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For some reason I've been blundering around Soderbergh's work lately, and it's an interesting mix. He can be accused of having a somewhat 'cold' style, but I don't mind it.
However, this particular concoction feels, at times, like it could have been acted by animatronic androids. Even given the stiff-collared behavioural norms of 1900 western society, there is only a tiny colour-palette of emotional range conveyed here.
Clive Owen does his best, with a thoroughly unlikeable character, and pretty much carries the show, along with André Holland.
Eve Hewson's single facial expression, for the entire series, eventually had me wanting another cast member to slap her, hard - just to get some kind of reaction out of her, beyond 'stare blankly, like a goldfish'.
Everyone else... basically just executes their utterly rigid roles to the best of their ability.
As a result - and especially given some of the idiocies present in the later plot - the final effect is rather cartoony: and a very dire and dreary cartoon, at that.
I've been looking up the historical background of 'The Knick', and that, for me, has been the thing that has kept me watching - the fact, threaded in through the fiction: 'Typhoid' Mary really was a stupid, stupid idiot, great strides were made with anaesthetics, the first US stirrings of state care and a responsible social contract emerged, etc...
Oh, and the music - at first I found it grating, but it appears this was because, at first, it was terrible. As the episodes went on, Cliff Martinez seemed to actually find some more settings on his Groovebox, and do some better composing. He never got anywhere near somebody like, say, Brian Reitzel, but he managed some quite pacey accompaniments here and there.
In the end, in spite of all its faults, I do have to say 'The Knick' is watchable Television, particularly if - like me - you are interested in medical history. But it could have been so much more.
I am actually enthusiastic about Season 2, if it gets that far: I want to see if The Knick inflates... or collapses.
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