The success of The Pitt has sparked a renewed interest in underrated medical dramas, especially those that don’t play by the genre’s usual rules. With its tense hour-by-hour format, The Pitt feels more like 24 in a trauma bay than a typical hospital series - and fans can’t get enough. Its adrenaline-pumping structure, relentless pace, and bold character choices have proven that there’s still room for reinvention in a TV space that often leans on well-worn formulas. What’s more, as fans of The Pitt wait for season 2, they’re finding themselves hungry for medical shows that bring the same level of urgency and edge.

That’s why there’s never been a better time to discover another medical drama that rewrites the genre’s rulebook (but in a completely different way). While The Pitt modernized the genre with its real-time narrative style and gritty realism, there’s a 2014 medical show that dials things back more than a century to paint a radically different portrait of medicine under pressure. With only two seasons and a highly stylized, uncompromising vision, it’s an experience that’s as unique as it is unforgettable. For fans of The Pitt looking for their next obsession, The Knick might just be it.

The Knick Is A Period Medical Drama Set In 1900

This Gritty, Stylish Series Plunges Viewers Into The Brutal World Of Early 20th-Century Surgery

One of the most underrated and best medical dramas of the 2010s, The Knick premiered on Cinemax in 2014 and quickly became a critical darling. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Clive Owen as Dr. John Thackery, the show delivered a visceral look at medicine in the year 1900, long before antiseptic techniques and antibiotics became standard. Owen’s Thackery is a brilliant but deeply flawed surgeon (grappling with an addiction to both cocaine and adrenaline), whose obsession with pushing surgical boundaries comes at a heavy cost.

In The Knick, the operating room is more bloodbath than miracle chamber

Set at the fictional Knickerbocker Hospital in New York City, The Knick offers a fascinating snapshot of a rapidly changing world. While other shows glorify the advances of modern medicine, this series pulls no punches in showing just how dangerous and experimental healthcare used to be. In The Knick, the operating room is more bloodbath than miracle chamber, and even the most routine procedure can turn deadly in seconds. Every episode is steeped in the tension of uncertainty, and the stakes always feel crushingly real.

Steven Soderbergh Reveals Why The Knick Was Cancelled

Steven Soderbergh explains why The Knick was cancelled after two seasons on Cinemax, revealing that a lot of things just were not in his control.

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Across its two-season run, The Knick built a small but loyal fanbase and earned praise for its striking visual style, layered performances, and rich period detail. Yet despite acclaim, the show never became a mainstream hit, which cemented its status as an underrated medical drama that still hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Clive Owen’s performance is a career best, and the ing cast - including André Holland as pioneering Black surgeon Dr. Algernon Edwards and Jeremy Bobb as hospital Herman Barrow - adds depth and nuance to a story steeped in pain, power, and progress.

The Knick's Unique Setting Makes It Different From All Medical Dramas

Early 1900s New York Turns Every Medical Breakthrough Into A Fight For Survival

Lucy looking serious in a still from The Knick Cropped

Where The Pitt weaponizes time to keep viewers on edge, The Knick uses its setting to create a different kind of pressure, one rooted in the unknown and the unspeakable. At the turn of the 20th century, hospitals were caught in the growing pains of modern science. Germ theory was still controversial, anesthesia was primitive, and many surgical procedures were essentially guesswork. That makes The Knick not just an underrated medical drama, but a terrifying history lesson.

The show’s atmosphere is drenched in the grime of old New York - horse-drawn carriages clatter down filthy streets, and electricity is unreliable at best. The Knickerbocker Hospital itself is caught between the cutting edge and chaos, with surgeons like Thackery forced to improvise with crude tools and limited knowledge. Patients routinely die on the table, and it’s not due to doctor incompetence. It’s because no one, not even the experts, fully understands how the human body works yet.

This sense of uncertainty and danger permeates every storyline. Even moments of triumph are tinged with horror, like when Thackery performs a ground-breaking cesarean section in season 1’s "Get the Rope" under near-impossible conditions. Every success comes at a cost, both personal and societal. From the racial tensions facing Dr. Edwards, to the systemic corruption plaguing public health, The Knick dives deep into the social context of medicine, showing how science and ethics are rarely in sync.

Ultimately, The Knick isn’t about how far medicine has come, but how much was risked to get there. It’s a haunting, unflinching depiction of the people who laid the foundation for modern medicine, told with the kind of stylistic flair and historical insight that few other series can match. That’s what makes The Knick such a uniquely powerful - and still massively underrated - medical drama.

The Knick Is Nothing Like The Pitt, But It Is Just As Intense

Bertie and Edwards standing in the snow in The Knick

On the surface, The Knick and The Pitt couldn’t be more different. One is a stylized period piece steeped in turn-of-the-century squalor; the other is a real-time thriller set in a hypermodern trauma center. However, despite their opposing aesthetics and pacing, both shows share one crucial trait: intensity. It’s this spiritual kinship in tone that’s exactly what makes The Knick essential viewing for fans of The Pitt.

If The Pitt thrives on time pressure and moral dilemmas in the heat of the moment, The Knick builds its tension through desperation, ego, and ambition.

If The Pitt thrives on time pressure and moral dilemmas in the heat of the moment, The Knick builds its tension through desperation, ego, and ambition. Every operation is a high-wire act, not because of strict time limits, but because of the sheer impossibility of success. Watching Dr. Thackery attempt to solve 20th-century medical mysteries with 19th-century tools is just as nerve-shredding as the countdowns in The Pitt.

Both shows also excel at pushing their characters to the edge. Like The Pitt’s Dr. Robinavich (Noah Whyle), The Knick’s Thackery is a man who sacrifices everything for his work, even his sanity. The emotional toll, the ethical compromises, and the constant friction between personal beliefs and professional duty are just as prominent in The Knick, they just play out in candlelit halls instead of fluorescent trauma bays.

A composite image of Noah Wyle looking over his shoulder in front of two doctors in dressing gowns in The Pitt

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Max's gripping new medical drama series The Pitt offers an unflinching and real look inside a hospital, and now it has scored a season 2 renewal.

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So while The Knick might not follow a ticking-clock format, it more than matches The Pitt in sheer emotional and psychological stakes. It’s a reminder that great medical dramas aren’t just about what happens in the operating room - they’re about the humans who dare to change the world with each incision. In that regard, The Knick remains one of the most intense and underrated medical dramas ever made.