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CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
45
Mixed:
9
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
RogerEbert.comOct 15, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The Knick is the most detailed show on TV, but by grounding the characters in timeless themes--addiction, class, race, desire, competition--the show transcends its undeniable craftsmanship to become something even greater, something uniquely incredible in today’s TV world. In arguably the best year of television to date, it still stands out.
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Oct 15, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Almost every scene demands that the viewer asks why it was presented in that particular fashion--not in a way that distracts from the narrative, but only helps convey the themes of the piece. And as the series jumps ahead to 1901, it's becoming more ambitious in those themes and its articulation of them.
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Aug 4, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The show was created by Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, but it's Soderbergh's vision, from the brilliant but unusual score (minimalist electronic music) to the wry camera angles (the series opens on Owen's shoes as he lounges in a brothel). For a period piece, it's strikingly contemporary--and quite gory, although the surgery scenes never feel gratuitous.
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Oct 13, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The second season picks up immediately with Soderbergh's visual flourishes and sense of when to use music or make what amounts to a soundless cloud that surrounds his perfectly framed shots.... That said, The Knick is more than just a visual tour de force. The writing continues to stand out and the characters evolve, while the acting remains top-notch.
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Aug 8, 2014
Aug 6, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Not since Deadwood has a period-drama production designed to a fare-thee-well and steeped in nasty atmosphere been so politically astute about who has power over whom and why--although the subtler brand of gallows humor and Soderbergh’s fondness for intricately choreographed long takes aligns The Knick with a different TV classic that Deadwood creator David Milch worked on, Hill Street Blues.
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Oct 14, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Soderbergh has found a brand new canvas to test out visual ideas and off-kilter storytelling devices, and The Knick‘s intoxicating second season proves to be a dazzlingly detailed and vibrantly visual mural of his obsessions, bringing on a sort of imagistic high that would count as the famed filmmaker’s most obvious addiction.
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Oct 8, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The downside is that the storytelling can feel awfully cold. Moments that should be personally affecting are often used to illustrate historical truths instead.... But these characters are still fascinating case studies for the mind-body connections we make as viewers: They’re better appreciated with the brain than the heart.
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Aug 6, 2014
Season 1 Review:
If the show takes a while to warm up--and seems to hit certain character beats, like Thack's cocaine addiction, or his feelings towards rookie nurse Lucy Elkins (Eve Hewson), over and over again--it builds in the way you would hope a modern cable drama season would, and many of the repetitive earlier scenes wind up laying a foundation for major shifts in the season's second half.
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Oct 22, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The Knick teems with forbidden passions and lives of unquiet desperation. [26 Oct - 8 Nov 2015, p.14]
Oct 15, 2015
Season 2 Review:
At points, the new episodes strain to link past and present, with Thackery launching into didacticism about how addiction needs to be viewed as an illness, and not a moral failing. His argument seems a bit too forward-thinking, and it threatens the show’s hard-earned period authenticity. But generally, the writing pulls in still-festering themes effortlessly, blending them with plotlines that are never less than engaging.
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Oct 15, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The first season of The Knick occasionally gave these characters too little to do, while the second season--at least through its first four episodes--feels like the writers have overcompensated and thrown a few too many balls in the air.... It’s easy to treat the past as a cozy prequel to the present; The Knick treats it as a ghost story. I don’t know if that makes for more honest history, but it makes for amazing television.
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Oct 12, 2015
Season 2 Review:
The Knick has become much more than another tortured-genius antihero story. It has developed a sprawl reminiscent of HBO’s “Deadwood,” stretching to the mansion and the gutter with equal familiarity.... Despite the often dark outlook, there’s also a sense of awe at the analog machinery of life.
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Aug 4, 2014
Season 1 Review:
Like “True Detective,” The Knick benefits from a consistent vision and stellar cinematography. Its turn-of-the-century sets and costuming will transport viewers into the past more vividly than any stuffy sitting room in “Downton Abbey.” But it requires dedication to stick around with The Knick until the action gets going a few episodes in.
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IndieWireOct 15, 2015
Season 2 Review:
Though Season 2 expands beyond Dr. Thackery’s worldview to a more even-keeled ensemble structure, this shouldn’t be an ensemble show. It should be Dr. Edwards’ show, and--just like its aforementioned limitations in quality--it comes so close to that, it’s even more painful that it’s not.
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Aug 13, 2014
Season 1 Review:
While the designated flawed hero John espouses an essential grasp of the purpose of medicine and the workings of disease (“Despite what you may believe,” he tells Cornelia, “Sickness isn’t a result of poor character, germs don’t examine your bankbook”), he’s also stymied, by his own prejudices as well as money concerns. That these might take him in different directions suggests the series has some sense of the difficulty of medicine then and still.
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Aug 8, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The series is at its most convincing, and most beautiful, at its most static. When the show bursts into action, or insists upon making its characters intense and extraordinary--some of them fictionally take credit for real-world medical advances and inventions--it grows, paradoxically, proportionally less interesting.
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Aug 6, 2014
Season 1 Review:
All 10 episodes of the first season are directed by Mr. Soderbergh, who brings grittiness and the occasional odd camera angle but not much light to the proceedings (this is a seriously dark show with limited use of lighting). Writers/series creators Jack Amiel and Michael Begler introduce plenty of characters with interwoven, serialized storylines but there’s not much new under the dim sun in The Knick.
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Aug 7, 2014
Season 1 Review:
The resulting episodes, however, are a bit like an impressionistic painting: intriguing to look at, perhaps, but not always clear in conveying what the actual intent is. And while the characters and their relationships do progress, for the most part those arcs develop along assiduous and fairly predictable lines.
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