Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman August 30, 2020

ABC's Kingdom Hospital, based on Lars Von Tier's (Melancholia, Nymphomaniac) Danish TV show The Kingdom, aired from March-July 2004 in the United States with the backing of prolific Horror novelist Stephen King who reworked the source for American audiences and within his own unique vision and style. King's influences run far and deep through the series; he penned the majority of the series' 13 episodes, and continuity is further maintained with Craig R. Baxley, who previously worked with King on Storm of the Century, directing the entire run.

Kingdom Hospital stands on the site of a disastrous fire that killed a number of children working at the Gates Falls textile mill that, at the time, was producing uniforms for the Union army during the American Civil War. “The ground is uneasy,” the narrator says of the place. As the series opens, a man named Peter Rickman (Jack Coleman), a world-renowned artist in his early 40s, is struck by a vehicle while out on a jog on a sleepy Maine backroad. He’s left for dead but eventually taken to Kingdom where his life is saved and, during his stay, he becomes a conduit of sorts between the living and the dead and the past, present, and future as he struggles to recover from horrific injuries that leave his doctors, including Dr. Hook (Andrew McCarthy), little hope that he will ever be the same again. The show explores the hospital's darker corners, terrible secrets, inauspicious past, dreary present, and doubtful future through the prisms of various hospital workers and patients as it becomes ever more clear that the place is haunted by the victims of the mill fire that claimed too many innocent lives many decades ago.

Accursed ground has been a major plot point for King in the past, notably in his excellent Pet Sematary, the story of land which can bring those buried in it back to life -- at a cost. In Kingdom Hospital, tragedy has birthed a haunting in a place of healing, and the resultant story is sometimes morbidly dark and disturbing as the series explores the human psyche from various perspectives with a supernatural bend. It's classic King in many ways, really. Dread, terror, and doom are reflections for and boiler pots for a tight, thorough exploration of the human condition. King crafts a smorgasbord of richly realized characters of not only diverse backgrounds but diverse perspectives on and places in life, each responding to the surrounding stimuli in different ways, each contributing to the total realization of the story's broader scope, larger purpose, and push to resolution on both personal and larger universal levels. Tight yet sprawling storytelling, dense yet accessible world shaping are King hallmarks and they are in full blossom in Kingdom Hospital.

Production design is critically complimentary. The show is almost as aesthetically dark as it is thematically dark. The hospital is unwelcoming at best and terrifying at worst. It's bleak and morbid in some ways, blending the classic perception of an asylum with the modern amenities of a hospital, but there are so many gray accents, low light corners, and unforgivingly bleak areas in the hospital that it can only build up, not mask, the underlying terrors that quickly become manifest to patients and staff alike. Supporting visual effects are not always so convincing as they might have been with a larger budget; the Antubis -- the snarling, sharp-toothed anteater that's a critical mainstay in the show -- lacks that tight digital construction and realistic insertions into the program, but it's important to remember that the show is over 15 years old and made for television. In context that, and other, digital effects look just fine, but today the net effect is not quite so positive in isolation.

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series was shot on film and the show proper looks quite nice if not a little soft. Grain distribution is even and flattering, complimenting a good array of core details evident on basics like faces and clothes and surgical masks while also offering fine foundational definition and detail on various surfaces around the hospital and elsewhere in the show. It's rather dark in total, and the bleaker corners do sometimes struggle to display the sort of tight-knit textural elegance one might expect to find with a film-based source, but certainly in more forgiving light support textures strengthen as feasible. Colors are often depressed, favoring bleak grays and shadowy, downcast tones under low output lighting. Brighter surgical rooms are one of the major exceptions, where whites pop off the screen with intensive command. Some daytime exteriors also offer a reprieve from the general lighting lethargy that permeates the experience. It's tonally effective and the Blu-ray manages it well, which includes solid black levels and quality skin tones under any lighting situation.

The image is not without some drawbacks, however. The opening title sequence is of a lower grade, showing more jagged edges, aliasing, and lesser definition to the digital constructs. The same may be said of some of the shots of the hospital as episode one transitions to the present day, and seen on the opening titles overlaid on the film-sourced footage. Tons of aliasing follows on Otto's security consoles, various lighting fixtures, shots outside the hospital, storefronts in town at the 18-minute mark, and so on. It's a fairly steady barrage that bothers the image but thankfully doesn't come anywhere near to destroying it. These issues are semi-regular occurrences throughout, but fortunately never amount to disastrous, series-destroying intensity; they're more like occasional eyesores. The overall film-like presentation and faithfulness to the source largely satisfies.

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series features a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack; there are no other tracks available and it's clear, with some frequency, that the channel limitation is a hindrance to the overall listening experience. The opening shake at the hospital finds width but no depth, certainly not at the low end and definitely not extended into the surrounds, as the effect would have certainly been more pronounced and effective with more opportunity for extension and depth. Such is evident with frequency throughout the series. Nevertheless, the two-channel presentation, even with the lossy encode, delivers a decent enough core listening experience. Music finds adequate clarity and front side stretch. Various atmospheric effects, notably in the hospital but even beyond its walls, do little to engage with tangible immersion but at least find enough clarity to get the point across. A few more densely active effects boast enough engagement to get the listener through the series' more raucous moments. Dialogue is the main driver throughout, and it images well to the center while maintaining good clarity and prioritization.

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series' packaging claims that the set includes a fairly expansive assortment of extras -- commentary tracks, several featurettes, and a Stephen King essay -- but these are nowhere to be found across any of the three discs. No DVD copies are included and no digital code voucher is to be found, either. This release does not ship with a slipcover. It does include an inner print that advertises a number of the publisher's other Blu-ray releases. Note that a post on the Blu-ray.com forums states that Via Vision claims that supplements were never intended to be included and that the listing thereof was merely the result of a printing error.

Kingdom Hospital: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Kingdom Hospital was adapted by Stephen King, not written by him from scratch, but it's nevertheless classic King through-and-through. The show is populated by rich characters inserted into a haunting atmosphere within a dense and complex world of ceaselessly moving parts, natural and unnatural, human and otherwise. It's dark and disturbing but unquestionably absorbing. The show is further propped up by solid performances and good pacing; it's the whole package. Via Vision's Blu-ray is absent supplemental features even if its packaging advertises otherwise. The 1080p video presentation is not without its flaws but it looks good enough on the whole. Audio is limited to two-channel lossy but the net effect is fine within those parameters, even if it's clear the show is wanting for more space and depth. Recommended, mostly on the strength of the show itself rather than anything to do with its Blu-ray presentation.