jannilsson-21434 Lars Von Triers Riget is one of the most brilliant TV series ever made. It's very funny and intelligent and the actors and the characters are superb, as well as all the dialog and the movement of the camera. The only thing one can complain about is that they never ended Riget, mainly because Swedish actor Ernst Hugo Gäregård died just after Riget II. And with his character Dr Stig Helmer gone who was the driving force of the series I don't see how it could have been possible to tie the sack. Stephen Kings remake is exactly the opposite of everything that Riget is, it kills everything good and unique about Riget and he should really be charged with murder. But if you have not seen the original series then maybe it's possible to see something good about it?? But my advise is to get the original series and save yourself from wasting some hours of your life.

anarchtheist If Lars Von Trier were dead he'd be rolling in his grave. Instead, in some strange masochistic career move he actually executive produced this garbage. If you're a fan of other works that Stephen King has a heavy hand in you'll likely love this as it is poorly acted, discombobulated, filled with hokey dialogue and horrendously scored. It takes little more than a few minutes into the pilot episode to know that you're in for a true trainwreck and that's almost exactly how far I made it. I couldn't stand to stomach much more than 15 minutes into the second part of the pilot episode. It seemed as if they were drawing strong parallels between Riget and Kingdom Hospital and that perhaps the plot would actually be fairly similar. One thing that I did enjoy was how much effort they took in the pilot's opening to create visually similar elements to Riget's opening while creating their own spin on it. It is truly unfortunate that this was so awful because my mouth was watering to perhaps find out, in the American version, what happened to Mona?

djmomo17 Years ago I saw Riget, the original Kingdom, and loved it. Then I saw this series when it originally aired and I could only get thru 4 eps before giving up. Recently I finally saw Riget II, which was even more riveting than the first part. Since a final Riget has so far never been completed, I thought I might try to watch the Stephen King version to at least get some kind of closure, no matter how awful a miniseries it was. Unfortunately it was not worth it, not even close.Lars Von Trier is credited as an executive producer for this series, but many times that means a person got some $$ but had no creative input whatsoever. It's more like a buyout. That's the only logical explanation.This series uses about a quarter of the plot devices from the original, "decompresses" the narrative to inflate the airtime to surpass the original's length and throws in some "side" episodes which have virtually nothing to do with the larger arc. The last 15 minutes of this 13 episode miniseries I literally had to fight to stay awake. I'm sorry to be so harsh but it was like a masochistic exercise in finishing this series. I guess I just wanted to see how awful it could get. Maybe if you never saw the original it would be better, but even as its own work this whole thing was about as good as a 9th season X-file ep. Sorry again to be so harsh.Good: Ed Begley, Nurse Carrie (the nurse who fainted all the time), Lona (I actually liked her a bit better than the original portrayal), evil doctor (one of the few original concepts which looked OK), Jack Coleman (ie HRG himself, playing a new character based on King's own experiences) Bad: Everything else. 4 main leads (Drusse, Stegman, Hook, Draper) - average and forced acting, tho the writing sure didn't do them any favors. Glacial pacing. Sideplots which stuck to the main body like an unwanted hepatoma. The "baseball episode" and the "miracle priest" eps were unnecessary and from a story point of view didn't even adhere to any kind of internal logic. The additional budget also really hurt the whole production. The original was almost filmed documentary-style (ie - Blair Witch / The Office). This was filmed in a much more conventional manner, lots of overdressed sets, music that was so present that it lost its effectiveness when it needed to be, CGI that stuck out like a sore thumb etc... There was a good bit of footage recycling in the finale ep as well. Talk about masochism. Every time they did a gag from the original it was done in the least shocking, least visceral way possible. Tho the "covered mice" shot in the 12th ep made me chuckle and think about how Standards and Practices censorship can actually make a scene more funny.Anyways if you are a fan of sophisticated comedy/horror check out the original Riget and Riget II. The ending of Riget I is probably one of the greatest cliffhangers in serial TV. If you started watching this when it first aired and never finished, then don't bother, it only gets worse with every episode. Some of Stephen King's writing I absolutely love (Dark Tower series, Stand, Shining) but this was a huge misstep and atypically lame.

Silicon_Hills_Review Riget is indeed an excellent body of work. But the humor is based on Danish culture and might be lost on other viewers. If you are a Stephen King fan, then you'll probably enjoy his interpretation of that story. If you don't like Stephen King, then why watch his movies? Consider "Psycho" starring Ann Heche - a remake down to the very last word and camera angle of Hitchcock's "Psycho." What's the point? Or consider James Whale's original Frankenstein - an absolute horror masterpiece. Does that mean I shouldn't enjoy "Young Frankenstein" because it mocks the original? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It brings this story to people who wouldn't otherwise watch it. Some people don't like dubbed movies - they ruin the atmosphere and subtitled movies invariably cause me to miss visual cues. I agree, Riget "Rules", absolutely. But this version has some interesting qualities and I enjoyed watching it. It's better on DVD without all the cuts on cable/dish.