KH makes me want to kill myself
[SPOILER ALERT]
I know King's done some rubbish over the years, mixed in with the fantastic like Shawshank and Green Mile. Kingdom Hospital may not be his worst, but it was pretty bad.
It started off with a great premise, but the majority of the series was spent on pointless arcs and the constant trivia's of Dr Steg. Who, by the way, was the only entertaining part of this series. It would have been better served as a black comedy rather than a sad attempt at horror.
The baseball story, jesus story, the inmate who got burnt... it all seemed to be just dragging on episode after episode with the main plot going nowhere. And in the end it really did go nowhere. Hardly anything developed, apart from the group of do-gooders saving the hospital which could have been done halfway through the series to save several hours of my life. The entire series could easily have been condensed into a single movie, or a 2-3 part miniseries. It was a real chore watching it to the end.
The last episode was terrible, most of which is spent watching replays of previous pointless scenes and having to put up with Mary and her extraordinary acting. I actually loved Jodelle Ferland in Tideland and Silent Hill, she was great. Perhaps she took some acting lessons after this? I actually took the side of the baddies waiting for her death. "that's just mary and her damn bell"
It might have been the directing anyway that requested she exaggerate the whiney, innocent little girl character so much, but her acting was upstaged again by Abel and Christa, the pink-uniformed duo. This is the worst acting in the history of cinema. Every line they say is with completely incorrect tones, using high pitch on random words. You can't even take them seriously. And the script and every line they're given was abhorrent. I spent most of the last few episodes repeating them and Mary's lines to annoy people. It's a love to hate thing.
And then there's Elmer, whom I just want to punch in the face everytime he pulls one of his stupid expressions. The entire headless body did nothing for the story except add goofy music into scenes and sets which should be scary. The whole creepy dark underground hospital turned into a circus when you've got headless guy running around like a clown.
This isn't all King's fault for his bad screenplay, a lot of blame has to go to the director. I'm almost put off watching Lars Von Trier's original series, but I'll persevere and hope it's not as goofy.