Kingdom Hospital

I didn't have the chance to see this mini-series during it's initial, network run because of my work schedule, but praise be to Blockbuster Video, and a nifty thing called a free movie pass. On the whole, "Kingdom Hospital" is Stephen King on a totally different level. This is horror; this is fine storytelling; this is video art. What I admire most about this masterful weave of suspense, and the psychedelic is that the author/producer makes the material his own, never leaning on Von Trier's success, though it must have been tempting at times to do so.

Like "Cop Rock," and "Twin Peaks" before it, "Kingdom Hospital" is the type of series we don't see often--which is to say that it commits the heinous, unforgivable crime of allowing the viewer to think for themselves. Watch it while you can. All too soon we'll be rocketed back into the arms of the predictable, and the mundane.

The First thing you have to know is that "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital" on ABC is a remake of the Danish mini-series "Riget" and "Riget II" by Lars Von Trier. So it's essentially a process of "translating" something for the mainstream. My main problem with this was that they didn't focused on all the important things; it lost all the humor factor and it's special weirdo characters, and that was what made the original show so unique. And now we don't have any of that, we lost all the interesting characters and the black humor, what we get is the gore and the ghost story only. It really gives an idea about how little King and the Americans understood from the original. Yes, Ernst-Hugo Järegård is irreplaceable, but for God's sake, even the rest of these characters are all too normal, they look too nice, healthy, like models. Even when they supposed to be weird, it's somehow cliched, typical commercially "alternative". It's the paradox goal of this show, you can't turn the alternative to mainstream while remain alternative, because they are the antitheses of each other.

Another negative thing is that it's budget was probably like 10 times higher than the original, that's not negative on it's own, but they used that money on things that would have been much better without them, first of all it looks like a Hollywood movie, even though they tried to create some alternative look with the lighting but it's still too nice, too hyper realistic, that subtracts from the creepy mood a lot. And then we have some CGI characters, a talking sloth-bear, that has the teeth of the Worms from Dreamcatcher... As a conclusion you get what you have expected, a dumbed down, mainstream version of something original, and the worst is that it's badly executed.

My Rating: 3 / 10

When Kingdom Hospital originally aired I watched it every week, then the air-date changed and I missed an episode and couldn't bring myself to continue watching with an hour's worth gap. I got my DVD set last week (a few days early) and I absolutely love this show. In a commentary on the DVD Kingdom Hospital is described as a video book and it really feels that way, it's got a perfect pace and you can really ID with the characters who are very rich and well defined. I feel that the story is more effective when you watch the episodes close together, waiting 7 days for subsequent episodes is like torture. It's sad that the ratings were low because I'd really like to see more of Kingdom Hospital and the characters involved. Ed Begley Jr., Andrew McCarthy and Bruce Davison especially give excellent performances, I give the special effects a big 19. Buy the set and you'll be addicted.

Riget is indeed an excellent body of work. But the humor is based on Danish culture and might be lost on other viewers. If you are a Stephen King fan, then you'll probably enjoy his interpretation of that story. If you don't like Stephen King, then why watch his movies? Consider "Psycho" starring Ann Heche - a remake down to the very last word and camera angle of Hitchcock's "Psycho." What's the point? Or consider James Whale's original Frankenstein - an absolute horror masterpiece. Does that mean I shouldn't enjoy "Young Frankenstein" because it mocks the original? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It brings this story to people who wouldn't otherwise watch it. Some people don't like dubbed movies - they ruin the atmosphere and subtitled movies invariably cause me to miss visual cues. I agree, Riget "Rules", absolutely. But this version has some interesting qualities and I enjoyed watching it. It's better on DVD without all the cuts on cable/dish.

First of all, as a former college English teacher, let me comment on the disturbing lack of good grammar, spelling, punctuation, ability to construct thoughts into logical sentences, etc., that I found in many of the comments posted for this program. It is frightening. Even more frightening than "Kingdom Hospital" has turned out to be. I began watching the program, because it was by Stephen King. The first double episode was interesting, but went no where. I decided to watch it again to see what was going to develop. Again nothing. However, I have noticed a pattern in recent episodes: Each begins with the insertion of new characters and the hour is spent explaining how they fit in. In last week's episode, April 22, I finally found something worthwhile: the dog eating the heart that was to be transplanted into the obnoxious lawyer (a redundancy, I admit) and the anteater doing his form of surgery: "Out with the old; in with the new." I found it hysterically funny. I do have a personality fault, in that once I start to read a book, I can't put it down, no matter how bad it is. I have to keep reading, hoping that it improves, that it provides some kind of insight. I have wasted a lot of time reading bad books. I hope that isn't the case with this mini-series. I trust King will give us some kind of pay-off before we are done with the 15 hours. There are so many ways the subplots, the character developments, the various themes can develop that I admit, I'm hooked, and will keep watching.