Kingdom Hospital (2004)

Careful how you check out

The poster to the miniseries.

Here they store what came before. Pain and suffering from days of yore. Before and after, tears and laughter. After comes before, before comes after. Past and future and then, hereafter. The naked and the dead, the young and the old. Their stories end here, their tales untold. Here sickness and death, have left their pages. Written in blood for all the ages. Someday, your story will be here, too.

Bill Meilen as Doctor Egas Gottreich, Kingdom Hospital

Director: Craig R. Baxley
Writer: Stephen King (episodes 1-5, 9-10 12-13), Richard Dooling (episodes 5-8, 11) and Tabitha King (episode 10)
Executive Producer: Stephen King, Mark Carliner, Lars von Trier
Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Bruce Davison, Meagan Fay, Jack Coleman, Diane Ladd, Jodelle Micah Ferlund, Ed Begley Jr., Jamie Harold, Sherry Miller, Alison Hossack, William Wise, Julian Richings
Released: 3rd March – 15th July 1999
Trailer

I’ll admit, I cheated a bit. Technically, this comes between Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower, but I don’t think anyone would begrudge me wanting to finish the Dark Tower series so close to the end instead of watching a one series wonder written (mostly) by Stephen King.

That being said, it’s interesting how this came about. It’s no secret that this was based on Lars von Trier’s series called The Kingdom. For various reasons, that series wasn’t able to complete its story until quite recently. King found the show whilst making his television adaptation of The Shining, and wanted to adapt it, making this an extremely rare case of King writing for something not his own, the closest prior being his episode of The X-Files.

Trier was very much inspired by Twin Peaks, an understandable source of inspiration considering it’s one of the greatest TV series ever made. As an adaptation, the mix of horror, comedy and surreal images feels like a direct pipeline from David Lynch’s brain. But where Lynch’s surrealism feels rooted in logic, even if it is Lynch’s own unique brand of it, it was tempered at all times by Mark Frost who grounded the series. That conflagration of talent led to the small town beauty of Twin Peaks. Stephen King I think is more the Mark Frost than David Lynch in terms of storytelling. Lynch operates on instinct when it comes to visual storytelling, something that King doesn’t often contend with; Frost has a rigid logic, even if he doesn’t always share it with the audience.

So when the anteater shows up, it feels like King trying a bit too hard.

It’s an interesting mix, but saddled by King’s usual issues he has with TV writing in that he takes too damn long to get going. This was a thirteen part series adapted from a five-part series, so there was naturally a fair bit of extra material this time around. Golden Years had a similar issue, though was far worse in terms of pacing, but where King’s slower pacing works for a novel in building an atmosphere, the slower pace for television isn’t quite the same. Even Twin Peaks starts with the dead girl wrapped in plastic, the best question to drive the series forward into mystery. Kingdom Hospital lacks the same engine, so I can understand why the audience dropped off quickly after the first episode (though scheduling inconsistency probably didn’t help).

It’s a shame, as once the series picks up and settles in, it does improve. King’s comedy has always been corny, but seeing a headless body search for its head to the song Where’s Your Head At by Basement Jaxx has a certain kind of mad charm. It never quite totally coheres, but I admire King’s approach, if the direction doesn’t quite keep up with the ambition of the story and script. How much of this can be laid at the feet of Baxley (who had directed King’s previous TV original series) and how much is the culture of how television was made in the early 2000s is hard to say. It’s certainly not the fault of the performers, who all put in a good job, especially Jodelle Micah Ferland as Mary, who wasn’t even ten at time of broadcast and carries much of the show’s emotional core.

It’s not a scary show, despite what the presence of ghosts may indicate. It’s more interested in playing with the metaphysics of the concepts baked into the show, which Twin Peaks did but was also horrifying at the same time. But those metaphysics are not fully explored, and considering this was intended to be a miniseries (though King had made plans for a second series), there is a lot left on the table left hanging or unexplored. Twin Peaks second series ending was because it was still an ongoing series. Kingdom Hospital was unlikely to have ever gotten that second series at all.

Despite all that, and the promise the series shows (as any first series will look shaky compared to what can come later), a second series never came. King had it plotted, but the network wasn’t interested. He had also sunk a lot of his own money into the series, and it is understandable why he stayed away from television for a couple of years. He wouldn’t stay away forever of course, but after the 90s proved to be somewhat of a golden age for King television adaptations, King seemed to cool towards the medium. With The Dark Tower now finished, King had earned a chance to slow down. Next year would see the release of only one book, which is a slow year for King.

As always, I return to the idea that King’s stories are best written down rather visual stories unless in the hands of someone with a keen visual eye and less slavish attitude to the material. King is ultimately quite a goofy guy, but the printed page is the great leveller. Without a firm hand on the tone, it can absolutely get away from you, which is what I think happened here. But then again, saying it isn’t as good as Twin Peaks begs the question – what is? It’s an interesting experiment, though by no means an essential addition to the King collection.

Observations and Connections and Notes

In episode 12, one character is making a potion using a recipe from a book called ‘Love potions, charms and spells’ written by Barlow and Straker, the vampires from ‘Salem’s Lot. In one of the episodes, Peter’s wife is reading Misery. Peter is also wearing a shirt with Little Tall written across it, which was the setting for Storm of the Century, Dolores Claiborne and Home Delivery.

Nozz-a-La is also drunk in this world, putting it somewhere within the worlds of the Dark Tower – until he final episode, when it is replaced with a Pepsi machine. Maybe the earthquakes are actually beam-quakes? After all, this technically comes between the final two Tower books. Speaking of the Tower, does the title card remind anyone else of that tall, dark place? Apparently, the anteater Antubis is an old trailmate of Roland. This is according Bev Vincent, though not found in any of King’s actual books. Bev is a very reliable source since he knows King personally (and one-time commenter here – hi, Bev!).

In the episode where the Robins lose the World Series, the commentator says, “It seems like something from a Stephen King horror story,” as part of those weird meta-textual references to himself King sometimes does. King makes his customary cameo in the final episode as the almost-always missing handyman. Finally, related to King, the opening car accident is based on King’s own experience.

It almost feels perfunctory to note that this takes place in King’s Maine, referencing Castle Rock. It’s mentioned that Kingdom Hospital sits on uneasy ground, similar to the sour ground of Pet Sematary, as well as the odd places like Rose Red or Black House. Maybe it became a thinny?

Outside of King, the name of the painter ‘Peter Rickman’ is a reference to the painter ‘Richard Pickman’ from Pickman’s Model, a personal favourite of mine. The repetition of The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Wallace Steven’s may sound familiar to King fans, as it was used back in ‘Salem’s Lot. I also have to wonder if Dr Hook is any good on karaoke night, given his namesake.

UP NEXT: The first in King’s crime novels, The Colorado Kid.