…but sloppily researched:
Although I wonder about “Dr. Jesse James” and “Dr. Massenngil,” Stephen King didn’t make up “Dr. Hook” – that’s from the original.
What is his anglicized first name, again? I dinna remember, but “Dr. John Hook” seems logical, and that’s even funnier.
FG - I don’t get your **Dark Tower ** References which I assume are from Wolves of the Calla it’s on the shelf weaiting for me to get achance to crack it open in a few weeks (after I finish re-reading the first four) but at this point I am thinking that Kingdom Hospital is very much a **Dark Tower ** story.
The title card that ABC keeps showing to frame the commerical breaks is off a stylized hybrid hospital/dark tower and though a don’t recall an aardvark as one of the guardians of the beam, I am almost sure the anteater said something about a gate. That along with the mirrored red “double k” logo for the hospital as well as the hospital’s name make me wonder if it isn’t all an allusion to the Crimson King (whom I begin to suspect may be Stephen King himself).
Could the hospital be a manifestation or an outpost of the Dark Tower itself?
Unrelated to the DT, but anyone catch that artist-man was jogging in an old “Little Tall” sweatshirt. For some reason that made me think of the “Miskatonic U” sweatshirts popular among Lovecraft fans.
And you know what, maynbe that isn’t unrelated since King keeps going on about the “Great Old Ones” in the DT
Curioser and curioser.
Those Dark Tower references are from Wizard and Glass, I believe. And I think everything SK lays his hand to for the rest of his life is going to have DT references. I bet he just wishes he’d started earlier. (Carrie could have used Field of Roses Tampons.)
That was the great Charles Martin Smith. I don’t think I’ve seen him since the Costner-Connery film of THE UNTOUCHABLES
Hmm, I thought that in the original, the grounds were also used as a dumping site for plague victims, dead or not.
Was doing something else. Will ABC repeat the pilot?
Dr. Hook’s demeanor in surery seems to come right out of MASH. A reference to author Richard Hooker, perhaps?
This is my first exposure to Kingdom Hospital, but I like it so far. There are a few things I’m confused about though. The kitchen workers seemed to know what was going on with security and the elevators. So is that because he was sending the information down to them to reset the switch, or because they’re psychic? It sounded like one of them was reciting something? about the elevators, I dunno, I didn’t really get it.
The hit and run patient was told if he heard a bell, he’d die. So the anteater helped him and the bell didn’t ring, so he lives and is apparently going to miraculously recover. Then while the anteater tells the patient he owes him one, the little girl is standing right there. So is she a menace or someone he’s supposed to help? Looks like he’s supposed to help her from the previews, so are we going to find out what’s up with the bell, or am I supposed to know this? “Others have bells, too.” I guess I’m not being very clear, but one more try. If the little girl is looming over the gurney in the ambulance while we all learn about the patient not wanting to hear a bell, I take that as her being a threat. So, why then, after the patient is recovering is she there along side the ally (anteater)?
My only complaint is the over-the-top security guard mugging for the camera. I can live with the dog talking, and liked the goofy names for the hospital staff, but I’m hoping there’s more character development since the mugging has already gotten old for me. Thought the doll on the elevator was creepy as well as the kewpie doll in the hit and run driver’s place.
I haven’t seen The Kingdom but I get the impression from the those who have that those kitchen workers are in tune with the building. I think the bit about elevator #2 and the lights going out is such a common occurance that they’ve learned to recite it.
I watched the second episode last night and am now, definitely hooked. That little girl totally creeps me out. Does the dead boy that had the ice cream pops have vampire fangs? He’s gotta be the “bad guy.” What did people think of this ep?
The Ice Cream guy definitely had fangs, though I don’t know if they’re supposed to be of the vampire nature or not. As confusing and seemingly meandering as the series has been thus far, I’m really enjoying it. I don’t understand a bit of what’s going on, but I have faith (possibly misplaced, but faith nonetheless) that it will all make sense in the end.
What tickles me the most, though, is that I used to live in Lewiston, Maine, where the hospital is supposed to be. While I never experienced any sort of earthquake there, those “hooligans” on the corner could have been my friends once upon a time, and the so-called strangeness of the characters reminds me of many people I knew when I lived there. 'Course, I’m just as strange, so all it does is make me happier.
I’m guessing the one the old guy calls “The Ice Cream King”.
Not “The Ice Cream King” – “The Emperor of Ice Cream.”
It’s a reference to the poem by Wallace Stevens.
He used both. “Ice Cream King” was when he was talking to Mrs. Druse. “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream” was in the nightmare.
Thank you!! I’ve been wondering since last night how I knew that line. Of course, I’m fairly sure I’ve never read the poem, so now I need to figure out what book I read that quoted it …
Draelin, possibly it was Salem’s Lot.
I don’t think so… I seem to remember thinking the old guy had come out of his fog enough to reference Stevens, and whatever was in that hypo must have been something good.
Then again, I was full of Fuller’s Ale, and god knows Stephen King likes to have his characters make eliptical little remarks in the direction of their author. Little tin-pot god. 
Guess we won’t know for sure until last night’s ep. is repeated.
I’d read a review where they mentioned the Wallace Stevens reference, so I was waiting for it to come up. I’m almost positive that the line was “The emperor of ice cream.”
Okay, I layed my hands on a copy of the episode to double check it, just for fun, and it is “the Emperor of Ice Cream” in both instances.
Bonus trivia found while trying to establish exactly how “Stillmach” is spelled – Leonard Stillmach is the name of a character in the novel Bet Your Life by Richard Dooling, who has a writer’s credit for this episode.
I’m glad that they left “Swedenborgian space” in there. I read The Heavenly Doctrine and The Earths in the Universe at a time when I was going through an entirely inadvisable amount of LSD and DMT, so that made me feel all warm and squishy inside.