"Riget" or "The Kingdom"

I have this book, in some ways I consider it my bible; "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die". For the most part this book has never lead me astray. Even if Im not partial too, or even remotely entertained by the movie suggestion; I can usually see the reason the film is important enough to be added to the book. One of this books suggestions is a Danish TV Miniseries which was "stitched together" for a theatrical release called: "Riget" (Danish title) or "The Kingdom".

Has anyone seen this before? I have to say... Ive just invested 4 hours of my life into watching this and I have no idea why the book suggested this series, or how it got in the book in the first place. Plain, cliche, uneventful, yawn inducing, second rate and absolutely remarkable in how unremarkable it is. After 4 hours of it, I feel like its just a second rate Danish hospital soap/drama. A European imitation "ER" with less production values and a generic story.

Denmark is more than entitled to make crappy TV, Im just curious about:
a) Has anyone whose seen this enjoyed this? Enjoyed it enough to consider one of the 1001 greatest peieces of celluloid ever created?

And
b) Could someone please explain to me why this would be considered such a marvelous cinematic achievement to be listed alongside The Godfather, Citizen Cane, Down on the Waterfront and the rest of the books entries.

And lastly, even though it wont make me many friends here, I have to say: Danish... the only word I can think of to describe the Danish language is Obtuse. Its like if your took a duck with a speech impediment and gave him down syndrome. Im sorry to say this... but this mini-series has hurt my opinions of the Danes.

Never watched it but I will after viewing this thread, then I can comment. You are the first person I have ever encountered calling it an ordinary unenventful soap opera though, everyone who I have heard either loath or praise it has always talked about it being post-modernistic weird with a lot of occult stuff, like most of Von Triers movies really.

And how can one mini-series hurt your opinion of an entire people? Guess I should start disliking Americans for Sex and the City