Sorry to take so long to respond… this thread dropped off my radar for a bit.
As far as the major plot points are concerned, Kingdom Hospital is (so far) pretty faithful to the original, while the show as a whole is pretty much totally different, if that makes any sense.
Most of the changes are additive. As far as the main arc of the story is concerned, obviously everything to do with Peter Rickman is new. The ghost-boy Paul is also a new addition, and there sure-as-shit isn’t anything remotely resembling Antubis in von Trier’s Kingdom. Apart from that, they’ve written a lot of additional material to give the American series a more “episodic” feel. New patients coming in, and bringing their own mini-plots with them? That’s all new. Major stuff, anyway, like the suicide-pact couple, Elmer’s drug-addict mom, etc. In the original, Mrs. Drusse has one special confident (who got a sex-change for the adaptation, becoming Lenny Stillmach,) who helps her to learn about Mary by communicating with her from the other side when Mrs. Drusse attends her deathbed. That scene is adapted closely enough that the American Drusse still brings her crossword puzzle book into it, even though the writers justhad the recently dead woman direct her to Peter Rickman’s room for the revelation, where the original had her working out Mary’s name as a more complex word puzzle in the margins of her book, with hints coming through the flashing fluorescents. The suggestion of a romantic relationship is there in the original, too, without regard for or comment on the same-sexness of the pair, ,ut that’s neither here nor there.) All the psychedelic freak out musical interludes are new, natch.
To give you an idea of how much padding has been added, everything that we’ve seen in the King Kingdom so far that is carried over from the von Trier Kingdom occurred in the first hour and a half of the show. The setup of the antagonism between Stig and everyone else in the hospital, his parking anxieties, Operation Morning Air, Drusse’s contacts with Mary, the baffling phantom ambulance, The Secret Society initiation, Hook’s Kingdom, the Mona situation, unusual seismic activity, a patient undergoing brain-surgery while conscious sees Mary, the student crush and the head-prank, his dream studies and twisted nightmare, Hook hooks up with his sweetie (and in the original they took the time to elaborate on the “complications” of her previous relationship, which are considerable.) There’s also other stuff that, so far, seems to have been left out, which was also dealt with very early on. In case it comes up later, I’ll box it:Stegman/Helmer’s lady innocently starts him on the path of some unlikely Dark Arts – Quite a bit of set up is established with regard to a doctor who covets a dying man’s rare and interesting cancer-ridden liver, and is frustrated by the family’s adamant refusal to allow the organ to be taken (post-decease) for research.
Apart from the stuff that’s newly made for the American Kingdom, there are a few things that have been altered in the translation:
The American Hook is hip-deep in the paranormal stuff from the start. The Danish Hook is totally unaware of all the ghostbusting stuff going on until the end of the first “season.” (Kingdom I) Mrs. Drusse does all her poking around (in the elevator, etc) with her long-suffering son. Hook has a few pieces of the puzzle but doesn’t have a clue that there’s anything supernatural about them until Drusse spells it out for him.
The kitchen workers are very different. In the original, they were only shown washing dishes and delivering cryptic exposition. (Much of which was centered on the metaphysical senses of cleansing-- “Some blood can be washed. Some blood can not be washed.” They often complained that the building itself was crumbling and dirtying the dishes, so that they’d have to be washed again.) The guy is a very matter-of-fact oracle, and that’s about it. All this business of them running around, messing with Stegman, playing matchmaker-- that’s all new.
All the inter-astral-plane politics is new. No “bad ghosts” menacing Mary in the original. There are a lot of instances of things being slightly shifted around-- for example, finding Mary’s doll in the elevator shaft. In the original, it was brought in by a senile/infantilized old woman, along with quite a few other clues. Since the doll is already there, I don’t think the old woman is gonna show. Too bad, she was great.
And I’m way intrigued by the Old Kingdom doctor and Paul as his assistant … what the hell is that?
