The standard operating procedure for most TV shows has been to open up the role of director to a variety of people, including cast members, famous film directors, and veterans of the small screen business. And it has done little harm to the thousands of episodic series that have come and gone over the years.
But between the haunting work of Cary Fukunaga on True Detective and Steven Soderbergh’s clear vision for The Knick, there’s a case to be made for filtering every episode of a series through a single person. How better to sustain a high level of quality from week to week, and to keep the tone consistent throughout? True, that tends to be the work of the show runner and actors, but being guided through each step of the journey by a single Virgil or Beatrice.
Right now on The Knick, Soderbergh is playing the role of Virgil, as many of the characters are reaching their own personal nadirs, much of it brought on by a lack of supplies in the hospital (due to ships getting sunk in the Atlantic as a result of the ongoing Philippine-American War). Chief among the losses are the leaves needed to make cocaine. While that pushes Barrow to start begging for more money from the Robertsons and the Catholic Church (who both turn him down), it sends Thackery into awful-looking withdrawals.
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