A conventional liquid crystal display consists of a liquid crystal cell between two crossed polarizers. By applying a voltage, the liquid crystal can be switched and the transmission of light can be manipulated. For thick devices, the transmission shows a strong wavelength dependency and this can be used to construct a tunable Lyot-Ohman filter. Such a filter consists of several liquid crystal cells with polarizers in between with a narrow transmission band that can be shifted over a certain wavelength range. Instead of aiming for a narrow transmission peak, in this work the aim is to achieve a wide transmission wavelength range. In this way the transmission band can be switched, for example, from the visible wavelength range to the near-infrared range. Because the device needs only two different states, bistable surface-stabilized ferroelectric liquid crystal devices can be used which offer short switching times in the order of 100 mu s. Numerical optimization of this switch reveals that high contrast ratios can be achieved by using 2 fixed and 2 switchable retarders.