Steven Soderbergh Wants ‘The Knick’ to Run Six Seasons

It’s been a few weeks since the Season 2 finale of Cinemax-Soderbergh medical period drama The Knick, which itself … well, it didn’t leave prospects for the series (or star Clive Owen) in a great place. We’ve heard that Steven Soderbergh might step back for a possible third, even fourth season, but now the revered director envisions it to run as long as six.

Take this with a grain of salt for the moment, as we don’t yet know the status of writer-creators Jack Amiel and Michael Begler’s efforts to pitch Cinemax on a third season premiere script, nor if the network would consider Steven Soderbergh’s idea to shoot Seasons 3 and 4 back-to-back. That said, Soderbergh spoke with Variety to continue his vision of the series shooting in two-season cycles, potentially running as long as six:

It was always conceived in two-year chunks. The writers met yesterday to talk about what year three and four would look like — when would it take place, who are the characters. We always imagined every two years we would annihilate what came before and start over. And that’s what we’re doing now.

I would like to keep going. I always thought of it as a six-year thing if we were allowed to continue. I hope we can figure it out. I hope we come up with something that I look at it and go, OK, I want to spend another two years of my life on that. Because that’s really the question. It’s an intense experience — rewarding, but I want to make sure we want to keep the bar at the same height or higher.

That said, it would seem unlikely of Soderbergh to direct every episode once more, as had been the case with the first two years, though equally uncertain is if the series might move setting, or even topic. It certainly doesn’t seem as if Clive Owen’s Dr. Thackery could return, but then again:

I don’t know yet. There’s been a lot of discussion about if we switch time periods can we still bring back the cast but have them play other people. Everything’s on the table.

Much of what critics adored about The Knick came through Soderbergh and Owen, but can the creative team really sustain new visions through a sixth season? Does The Knick work with a two-season anthology approach?