Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital

HORROR AND HILARITY

Kingdom Hospital

Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital
By Aine

Episode # 1 (two hour premiere) 03/04/2004:

So Stephen King has something new up his sleeve does he? Well we’ll just have to check it out. I have to say that I was bored at first; it started off a bit slow with a flashback sequence and annoying narration. Later I realized that the narrator was a giant aardvark, at least I think it is. I’m sure that will become clearer as the series progresses.

There is a hospital built on the site of a horrible tragedy where many children were killed in a fire, the staff of this hospital is very odd. There happens to be a psychic lady there who meets with other psychics, and the spirit of a little girl named Mary, who has a bell for some reason. This too shall become clearer I assume.

Our main character, the artist, is jogging on the side of the road when he is hit by a man driving a van, who was distracted by his dog. If this sounds familiar it’s because it’s almost exactly the same thing that happened to Stephen King himself. The artist has been painting a creature, which I believe is the giant, scary aardvark. While he is lying unable to move on the side of the road, a crow lands on him and threatens to eat him, and the aardvark comes over and licks an ant off of his face. I am seriously disturbed by this aardvark, which is obviously some sort of guide who wants the artist to tell everyone about Mary. Ahhh…the wonderful, odd mind of Stephen King; I can’t wait to see how this series progresses.

Episode # 2 03/10/2004:

I am now even more terrified of the aardvark. I am also beginning to worry that the little “Red Dragon Tattoo” song from this show will never leave my head for the rest of my life; it’s just so catchy, even when the crazy drunk guy is singing it.

And speaking of the crazy drunk guy, also known as the guy in the van who plowed over the artist, it seems the cops have come to speak to him about a certain accident. Unfortunately, at the time when they arrive, he seems to be busy working on his roof while drunk and singing and wearing about twenty nicotine patches. Then the dumbass falls off his roof, which prompts his dog to say something along the lines of, “Nice going, who’s going to feed me now?” The talking dog thing seems to be going on everywhere because the German Sheppard at the hospital is also rather chatty.

Things are coming along more with the psychic and the little dead girl, Mary. Dr. Hook spots the girl in the elevator shaft, along with her little doll. In the meantime the guy who pulled the hit and run is in the hospital but the aardvark keeps trying to kill him by cutting off his oxygen with his sharp, terrifying teeth. I don’t know what to think of all this really, but it’s got me hooked already. I can’t wait for next week’s show.

Episode # 3 03/17/2004:

Ahhh….now it’s starting to come together, in its own weird way. Some of the mystery is beginning to unfold around Mary and her bell, and her connection with Mr. Aardvark, and now there’s some weird teenage boy with vampire teeth chasing her around too. Ok, so maybe it just got more confusing, but in a good way. We also learn the reason [malpractice] why Dr. Stegman (Bruce Davison) has joined the staff of Kingdom Hospital, and are treated to an intense scene involving him and a patient’s mother.

I must admit, though, a few things are already beginning to get old. For instance: the mentally challenged couple, or whatever they’re supposed to be; will their giggling ever stop?! I’m also getting really sick of Diane Ladd’s worried psychic routine. But, other than that, Stephen King is taking us on one hell of a ride.

I’ve already heard talk of this show being cancelled, which would be completely devastating since it’s the only interesting thing left on television. Plus, I’m just dying to see what the next song and dance number is going to be. Na na na na…hey hey hey…goodbye!

Episode # 4 03/24/2004:

This week Dr. Stegman (Bruce Davison) is starting to exhibit some extra crazy tendencies, such as muttering to himself in the rain at night, and pulling a gun on some local vandals. It seems he’s hunting down those who defaced his car, and will do almost anything to find out the culprit(s). Since I happen to know the ones who did it are those two giggling Down syndrome kids, I almost hope he catches them.

Meanwhile, Sally psychic’s good friend Lenny has died and he’s now on the other side with the whiny undead girl, Mary. “Won’t somebody please help me?” Cry baby. This episode just rubbed me the wrong way I guess, I think because everyone in it seems all whiny and I wanted to smack them.

Oh yes, and as it turns out, the older doctor is the father of the younger, ugly doctor who bears a strong resemblance to Quentin Tarantino. It seems the young lad’s estranged, drug addicted, mother has died due to a heart attack she had when a man she was caring for died and then came back to life and yelled at her.

And finally, the evil vampire-looking teenage boy is now talking to the serial killer from the last episode and telling him to kill the psychic, which would be fine by me.

Episode # 5 03/31/2004:

This episode was just plain weird, and I don’t mean that in a good way. Of course some new details towards unfolding the mystery came out, but they seemed clumsy and rushed.

Our bad little dead boy, Paul, tries to kill the artist so Mary calls “Antivus” to stop him. At least I think that’s the anteater’s name; it’s often hard to tell what the little girl is whining about.

Meanwhile, a priest holding a reading group for vagrants deals with a man who goes crazy and starts speaking in rhymes, including ones about Mary and company.

He turns out to have a brain tumor and is operated on by Dr. Stegman. If course, our hip hoppin’ vagrant wakes up during surgery and sees Mary and then he dies. Through out the rest of the show they try to convince us that he looks just like Ernie, the Tarantino-looking guy; whatever.

For an extended period of time we listen to Dr. Hook as he explains the origins of Kingdom Hospital to his little blonde doctor friend. He also shows her some creepy miniature graves he made that represent mistakes and malpractice within the hospital. Nice hobby dude.

Oh yes, and naughty boy Paul managed to drop a big pipe on our ant-eating friend; could this be the end of Antivus?

Episode # 6 04/08/2004:

This makes up for all the confusion and dullness of last week. It seems that the big earthquakes in Kingdom Hospital are caused by Antivus; I don’t know why I didn’t catch on to this little fact sooner.

It also seems that there is a secret society of “keepers” at the hospital, and Dr. Stegman has just been initiated. After some very odd ceremony, Stegman finds himself lost in the “ghost” floor of the hospital and chased by a red-eyed German Sheppard.

In a rather hilarious but, Ernie cuts off the head of his dead “twin” to play a joke on the object of his desire. However, the funny part comes when the headless body goes to the spirit area in search of his head. All the while the song “Where’s Your Head At” plays in the background. They also combined this gem of a scene with the drunken hallucinations of a prestigious member of the “keepers.” I also noticed that one of these keepers was played by the smoking man from the X-Files.

Meanwhile the killer attempts to burn the artist alive so Mary takes the artist’s spirit with her to the ghost area where they find the injured Antivus. Through tears and bad acting, Mary explains that Antivus cares and kills, is an eater of disease, and is both horrible and beautiful; thanks for clearing that up kiddo. The artist does Antivus a “solid” by giving him a blood transfusion. Antivus then goes to stop the killer, and in a terrifying showdown, manages to cause the man to light himself on fire. I can’t wait for next week!

Episode # 7 04/15/2004:

This show is on Thursday nights now, just thought I’d give everyone a head’s up. So it begins, it begins with a fat lawyer whom you horror fans might remember from The Omen IV. He is involved in a scandle where he slept with and impregnated a young girl who worked in his office, and when the mother brings it up in court he has a heart attack and is carted of to, you guessed it, Kingdom Hospital. The only problem is, everyone is afraid he’ll sue them for malpractice, so he must sign a waiver before they treat him. In a swirl of crazed activity they videotape him signing the waiver and as he finally received some morphine he hallucinates that Dr. Hook is ordering things like motor oil and a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

When the lawyer awakes he received a new roommate in his room, the crazy killer, now badly burned, but still ready to kill apparently. Another disturbing thing occurs when Antivus starts visiting people’s rooms and showing those giant teeth of his.

Oh, and for some reason, the German Sheppard can go between the ghost world and the real world as it pleases. And it does so to retrieve the head of the vagrant and present it proudly to Hook and Stegman, nice. Too bad the removal of the head interrupted the headless body, who was enjoying a long shower…man this show is weird.

On the ending note, the artist’s wife is now going to work with the psychic, sounds good to me.

Episode # 8 04/22/2004 (By Irwin Keyes):

At Kingdom Hospital, freaky phenomenon is popping up all over the place. The episode starts with the anger intensive “HEAD OF HOSPITAL” freaking out over his inability to find a parking space for his fancy Jag. He soon arrogantly decides to simply appropriate the hospitals busy heliport as his new Jag port. By the middle of the show, our Hospital Head nearly has a nervous breakdown, as he watches from his Ivory Towered Office as nearly blind Head of Security (Peter Dickman), orders the Jag towed away! Our ex-coma/catatonic patient in the I.C.U. Peter Rickman (Jack Coleman) is literally pulling the stuffing out of the antique Teddy Bear left by the queer little girl with the big dark eyes. The stuffing turns out to be a very old newspaper dated 1869. The top story on Page 1 is about child slavery in a factory that burned to ground on the very site where Kingdom Hospital now stands. Many children were killed here. Using deductive reasoning, Dr. ......discovers the little girls name is Mary (Jodell Ferland).

-2- Our heart attack victim in the ICU is played by Michael Lerner. He is awake now and plotting his next move in bed. This is the sleazy ambulance chasing lawyer, who all the Doctors despise to treat for fear of a malpractice suit. The lawyer is trying to figure out how to survive this one. His Doctor has informed him that his only hope is a heart transplant. (If lawyers have hearts!) In the bed next to our lawyer here in the same room, is the Coma/Maniac character. He went berserk all thanks to the mean spirited evil boy ghost on another episode. This crazy ended up setting fire and burning over 40% of his body. Outside his ICU door sits a well armed policeman. Lerners character has a dream of taking the maniacs heart for his own. Only the Coma/Maniac is well aware of what the sleaze is thinking. Along comes our healing aardvark Antivus into the room. Lerner pleas with the aardvark for his healing help. Promises to reform and
handle only indigent cases if he is spared to live.

-3- Our Coma/Burn criminal is awake now and rises out of his bed to attack the evil Lawyer. As he charges, the Policeman outside the room comes charging into the room and firing his gun. Michael Lerners character is screaming at the Officer, “DON’T SHOOT HIM IN THE HEART.” His pleas are to late. A helicopter is landing with a seriously ill victim of an accident. (Not just any accident, a murder/suicide. It seems his wife was cheating, so he shot her. Could it be coincidence that she had a large red dragon tattoo on her back?) By the time he is wheeled into the O.R. the Doctors are more concerned with harvesting his organs than saving him. The heart is soon cut out. Along come the German Shepherd who slips into the O.R. The animal retrieves the lone unwatched heart organ and carries it in its mouth to be replanted in its new owner. The Shepherd takes the heart to Aardvark standing over the lawyer. We hear a loud scream from the lawyer and the screen goes black “till the next episode.”

Episode # 9 04/29/2004:

The only thing I can say about this episode is what the fuck? And I don’t mean that in a good way. There is only one tiny moment that furthers the plot, where we learn that for some reason, Paul the evil ghost boy has to hang out in a tank full of water from time to time to “recharge.” The rest of the episode revolves around some loser baseball player who lost his team the World Series and then shoots himself in the head. But thanks to Mary and Peter, he gets to go back in time and do it right and then everything is happy again. Even if I liked baseball this would have been retarded to sit through. The show is taking a break after this, and I don’t really want it to get cancelled, but at the same time, I’m ready for things to be resolved already. It should return for its last four episodes in late May. (Thanks to Erica for the schedule update.)