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Anyone else here who is a fan of this?
Brilliant TV series about a hospital in New York beginning in the year 1900. The Knickerbocker hospital is situated ina downtown area in new York and financially struggling for survival as well as being on the verge of entering the new century with modern medicine as we know it today.
Main character is Dr. John Thackery, a genius in surgery and the new chief of staff played by an outstanding Clive Owen. Not only does he fight for keeping the Knick alive but also for his scientific researches to modernize surgery and achieve a better treatment of patients with a better survival rate. But also he personally has to fight with his inner demons, as he is blatantly addicted to Cocaine too help him function.
Further important characters are his team around Evert Gallinger ( who strives to climb up the hirarchy), Berti Chickering, the new deputy Dr. Algernon Edwards. Female leads are Cornelia Robertson as a social worker and daughter of a sponsor of the hospital as well as young nurse Lucy Elkins (played by Bono's daughter Eve Hewson, she's lovely!).
The series is directed by Steven Soderbergh. According to the time the flow is mostly more calm, but it catches the old New York very well in my opinion. Often it has an almost sepia tone on the pictures. The cast is great, they are brilliant together and everybody is wonderfully casted.
The scenes in the operating theatre might be a bit explicite for the more sensitive viewers. The death of the patients is often a step on the way towards finding new medical treatments. Having worked in the hospital for a long time I was surprised how many modern aspects are adressed, financial pressures and the medical sciences being continiously on the flow just being two of them.
So, highly recommended by me!
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I just finished watching the first season. (The dvds are available at the library). I really like it so far, my favorite characters are Thackery and Bertie. I dislike Gallinger, and I've read that his character becomes quite evil as the show progresses.
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Oh, absolutely, Gallinger is not set up as a character to be particularly liked. Though his personal bad luck would get to everybody I think. The problem is that he doesn't learn from personal experience at all.
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I want to catch this series as I have heard good things about it.