Kingdom Hospital (BBC2)

Carthage: The Roman Holocaust (C4)

WHEN you're ill in hospital, it's always pleasant to receive visitors. Unless you're in a Stephen King mini-series, that is. Artist Peter Rickman wakes to find a little girl who looks deathly pale (probably because she's a ghost) and a talking anteater by his bedside.

Most people's first reaction would be to leap from the bed and run screaming as fast as they could for the exit. Rickman can't, having been immobilised after being knocked down in an horrific hit-and-run accident while jogging along a country lane.

As a similar accident happened to top horror writer King in real life, we must assume there's an autobiographical aspect to all this, although I assume (and pray) the ghost and the anteater are figures of his fertile imagination.

Kingdom Hospital is seriously weird, quite unlike our own dear Holby City. King has taken a mini-series by Danish film-maker Lars von Trier and the result subscribes to the Twin Peaks/Wild Palms school of weirdness.

The reason for the odd happenings is linked to events 150 years ago when a factory on the hospital site burnt to the ground, trapping hundreds of child workers inside the blazing building. Now, we're told, "perhaps the ground Kingdom Hospital stands on is still uneasy".

There's no perhaps about it. The ghostly girl is a regular visitor on the wards. "Watch for Mary, listen to her bell, it's a death knell" is the jingle that accompanies her. The staff look and behave oddly, the lights continually go out, and a crow fluttering around outside is never a good omen. And would you trust medics and staff with names like Dr Jesse James, Dr Hook and Johnny B Goode?

Rickman is played by Jack Coleman, whom Dynasty fans will recall as Steven Carrington. The cast is full of actors you half recognise in a "I wonder what happened to him/her?" kind of way.

It's probably hoping too much that this will eventually make any sense. You can either go along for the ride or, like the security guard, curl up with the latest edition of Spanking Nurses.

Carthage, like the factory in Kingdom Hospital, was razed to the ground as Rome's plans for world domination included destroying "one of the most dazzling empires of the ancient world". Once the Roman army broke through the gates of the city - in what's now Tunisia - they were under orders to leave no building standing and not one person alive.

Presenter Richard Miles appeared to have shot himself in the foot at the start by announcing that "virtually nothing" was known about the Carthaginians, which made you wonder how he was going to fill the next two hours.

He managed. There was enough evidence, backed by intelligent conjecture, to build up a picture of Carthage and its people. They included Hannibal, their most famous general who took 21 elephants and an army to attack Rome.

Not everything went according to plan as the elephants sometimes attacked their own troops. Perhaps he should have taken anteaters instead.