‘The Knick’ Season 3 Would Have Been Black and White (And Set in 1947!)

Whatever hopes we had for The Knick Season 3 were hammered into its coffin like needles in Dr. Thackery, and Steven Soderbergh isn’t going to make it any easier. The series director now reveals that a particular aesthetic may have killed Season 3, which itself would have moved mid-century.

Soderbergh participated in a Reddit AMA for Logan Lucky (h/t IndieWire) that inevitably turned toward questions of the two-season period medical drama. Cinemax only recently confirmed that its action-oriented re-brand precluded writer-creator Jack Amiel and Michael Begler’s renewal pitches, though Soderbergh explained that the network’s true hangup was … well, pretty black-and-white:

Season three of THE KNICK was set in 1947 and was going–at my absolute insistence–to be shot in anamorphic black-and-white. It’s POSSIBLE that may have contributed to its demise…

Last we’d heard, the idea was for a two-season reboot to take place twenty years after the Clive Owen period piece, with a potentially similar reboot after that. Soderbergh had considered returning for a third and fourth season in his capacity as director, but clearly had more influence on the pitch than we thought.

Soderbergh is at least keeping busy with the Starz reboot of The Girlfriend Experience, but would a black-and-white 1947 Knick have lived up to the original?