Knickerbocker Hospital,
turn-of-century New York, is not the place you want to get admitted,
overrun as it is by a coke addict, a brilliant black doctor who is
not allowed to practice and a manager up to his neck with debt
collectors. Then again, there's no place better if you get the right
man at the right moment. When directed by Steven Soderbergh, how can
this new show on HBO Hits be anything but brilliant. The energy, the
colours, the twisted characters and best or worst, the practice of
medicine in all its blood and gore (warning: you need a strong
stomach to watch this), by people who are obsessed with their
profession makes The Knick
a precursor to Grey's Anatomy.
Where it differs from Grey's
is not in the baring of bones to show the skeleton of human ailments,
both physical and spiritual, but in the fact that you give a damn
about the people at The Knick.
You feel for each one, flawed as they are, because they struggle to
rise above what they seem to be.
Clive Owen plays Dr John
Thackery, a cold yet committed soul with a monkey on his back that
grows heavier by the day. Algernon Edwards (Andre Holland) runs an
'informal' clinic for coloured people in the basement, politics and
egos clash on a regular basis and well-to-do former lovers arrive
with syphilis. Good stuff.
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