Mini-series shares King's darkest hours

By Mike Hughes
Gannett News Service

In the opening episode, an artist (Jack Coleman) is run down by a van, and taken to eerie Kingdom Hospital. ABC 'Kingdom Hospital' 8 p.m. tomorrow ABC

That became "Kingdom Hospital," which starts tomorrow on ABC. This time, producer Mark Carliner said, King's vision is even darker and his humor even edgier than usual. And it emerged in one burst, as he recovered from a near-fatal 1999 traffic accident. "He came out of the hospital and he sat down and wrote 15 hours (of television)," Carliner said.

That could have been just some post-trauma therapy, leading nowhere. King was adapting a Danish miniseries for which someone else owned the rights.

"There was no deal," Carliner said. "We didn't have the rights. ... It just came from the gut."

Then a deal worked out. "Kingdom Hospital" begins tomorrow. And ABC president Susan Lyne promises "a huge, surprise ending" in the two-hour finale.

One of the most comedic characters is Dr. Jesse James, played by Ed Begley Jr. "He's the guy whose solution to every problem is to have more stickers and more posters," Begley said. "... (His) approach to medicine is to make people really feel happy, warm and fuzzy."

There are huge problems for him to ignore. This hospital was built on the site of a fire that incinerated children. Bad things happen; ghosts are seen and heard.

One woman (Diane Ladd) is merely pretending to be sick, so she can help patients communicate with the ghosts. Another character (Jack Coleman) hovers between life and death, between fact and fantasy.

That's the character King added to the original Danish story. He based that part on what happened to him in 1999.

It was close, Carliner said. "Steve ... really hovered between life and death for a long time period of time and spent a good bit of that year in and out of hospitals."

Afterward, he clung to the event. He bought the van that hit him and keeps it in his garage. And he was ready to tell a story that included a patient's view of hospital horror.

Back in 1996, King was in Colorado to watch the filming of ABC's "The Shining" miniseries. In a Boulder video store, he found a tape for the Danish series by Lars von Trier. The show — alternately called "Riget" or "The Kingdom" — fascinated him.

He tried to buy the rights, but was told Sony had already done that and was making a movie. He dropped the idea.

The accident came three years later, changing everything.

"He's rushed to a hospital DOA (dead on arrival)," Ladd said, "and is brought back to life, and has this incredible experience he wants to share. And then the studio that bought this material comes to him to buy a movie, and he's able to make a trade for the material."

Sony stayed on, as one of the producers.