Just in 'The Knick' of time

By Tom Whitehead – “I work as a museum and education assistant. My main areas of interest are modern social and oral history, but more generally I'm interested in thinking about and exploring new ways in which we can engage diverse audiences with historical themes and topics they may not have previously considered. And Game of Thrones, I love Game of Thrones.” Check out Tom’s own blog here - https://tpdwhitehead.wordpress.com/

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knick

As someone who is both a historian, and one who enjoys lying in front of the television in a state of semi-conscious bliss, I’m always on the lookout for a good historical drama. In my mind the stick every historical drama should be measured by is Deadwood, a show that was cancelled criminally early and which remains, to this day, one of the finest pieces of television (and for that matter anything) I’ve watched.

Until fairly recently, I thought that the show which would finally topple Deadwood from its lofty perch would be Boardwalk Empire, a presumption primarily based on the fact that every television critic from Los Angeles to Littlehampton kept referring to it as “the new Deadwood”. But truth be told, Boardwalk never really captured me the way Deadwood did. Was it bad? No, far from it; but neither was it on a par with Deadwood, a show which managed to present a microcosm of frontier society in nineteenth century America in a way which explored some very important historical issues, whilst remaining grounded in the human story it was trying to tell.      

I never thought I’d find my new Deadwood, that is, until I started watching a programme called The Knick on Sky Atlantic. On the surface, the show is a medical drama about the Knickerbocker Hospital (or, as it’s more commonly known, simply ‘The Knick’), set in early twentieth century New York. However, watch it for more than ten minutes and you’ll soon realise there is so, so much more to the show than that description can ever hope to convey. There are only two series so far, and I hope beyond all hope they make a third season, because without doubt The Knick is as close to perfect as a historical drama can be.

On a purely televisual level the show is superb. It’s beautifully shot, it has a great soundtrack, the casting and characterisation are great across the board, and the production team have done a great job in creating a series of settings which feel historically authentic. As I argued in a post on my own blog a few years ago, to me historical accuracy is less important than historical authenticity. I have no idea if the clothes the cast are wearing are 100% accurate, or if the slang and idiom they’re using is genuine turn of the century New Yorker; and more to the point I don’t really care. I don’t care because what they’re wearing and saying feels accurate, and in terms of historical drama that, to me, is the thing which counts.

However, it is the way the show uses the medical procedural format to explore its historical context that I particularly like. Like with the costumes, I’m not sure if the medical history The Knick presents is entirely accurate, and there are some scenes and storylines which certainly seem to have taken great artistic licence with history. However, in this case I feel it is justified, as it is clear The Knick is using these more imaginative segments to expose its audience to nineteenth century attitudes towards medical issues such as abortion, contraception, addiction, and mental health, in a way which allows them to understand them but which isn’t unduly didactic. At no point when you’re watching The Knick do you ever feel like these issues are being forced into the narrative as a point of discussion. Rather they feel like a natural part of the narrative, and as such you find yourself thinking about them long after you’ve finished watching.

Indeed, for me the true triumph of The Knick is that the issues it explores go well beyond the operating theatre. The Knick does not shy away from exploring difficult social, ethical and political themes, and it would be hard to pick out just one or two key examples of this as the themes the show explores are all so tightly interwoven. However, if I had to pick out one grand ‘theme’ it would be inequality in all its guises. The Knick does a great job of showing how deeply divided New York was on racial, gender and socio-economic grounds, and more to the point it shows just how many people had a vested interest in it staying that way. As such, The Knick holds an uncomfortable mirror up to our presentday society, as whilst we have come a long way since the early 1900s, watching The Knick reminds us that the shadows of our collective past will continue to follow us for a long time yet to come.