The Sandkings
| "The Sandkings" |
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The Sandkings is the first episode of the revived 1960s science-fiction television series The Outer Limits, based on the short story Sandkings by George R. R. Martin. first published in Omni Magazine August, 1979. The episode premiered on 26 March 1995 on Showtime and features three generations of the Bridges family, which was used to promote the new series.
Introduction
A scientist steals some specimens of Martian life from his workplace laboratory to continue his research at home.
Opening narration
Some of man's greatest achievements have been motivated by a driving need for love and acceptance. What happens when that need for recognition, becomes a desire to be revered, and then worshipped...like a god?
Plot
Dr. Simon Kress' (Beau Bridges) research for the government on Martian life is aborted because one of his specimens almost escaped into the natural environment. However, Kress doesn't agree with the abandonment of the project and decides to continue his experiments in his barn. He steals some sand containing Martian eggs from his lab and creates a makeshift incubator to hatch more of the Martian lifeforms.
In the meantime, Kress deals with growing discord with his wife (Helen Shaver) over financial troubles, his obsession with work, and the stress of concealing the stolen Martian lifeforms from his former supervisors at the government lab. Kress comes to believe that he is a god to his sandkings when they build sand structures that resemble his face (the face is looking across, unlike the Face on Mars, which is looking up). He begins to mistreat them, and eventually the sandkings turn on Kress. In the end, Kress attempts to destroy all the sandkings but fails. In the ending of the episode, a colony of sandkings is shown surviving in the wilderness.
Closing narration
Increasingly, modern science pursues powers traditionally reserved for the Almighty. But those who encroach upon the province of the gods realize too late that the price for entrance...is destruction.
Differences from the original story
- The action of the original story Sandkings by George R. R. Martin takes place in the distant future on a far planet colonized by humans.
- The original story does not specify the planet of Sandkings' origin.
- Simon Kress is possessed by neither scientific interest nor desire to receive the Nobel Prize, but simple aggression, which turns the initially harmless Sandkings into aggressive creatures.
Trivia
- "Sandkings", the first episode of renewed television series The Outer Limits, was aired 30 years after the broadcast of the latest episode of the original TV-series of 1963.
- In this episode, we can see the three generations of Bridges actor's dynasty. "Sandkings" is the only project in which Lloyd Bridges, his son Beau and grandson Dylan starred together.
- At 92:38 minutes, "The Sandkings" is twice the normal length of other episodes in this series. Sometimes this episode is broadcast as two separate episodes.
- Helen Shaver, who played Cathy Kress, took part in The Outer Limits not only as an actress, but also as a director. In total, she had a role in 7 episodes.
- Fragments from "Sandkings" are also included in the final episode of season one, "The Voice of Reason". During the "The Voice of Reason", clips from this episode are used to support an argument that the Earth is undergoing a number of different alien invasions. Later in the episode, two alien conspirators acknowledge, in private conversation, that the sandkings could become a serious problem in about thirty years, assuming that they could survive in a methane-based atmosphere, which the aliens intended to gradually transform from the earth's human-friendly one.
- In the sixth season episode "Final Appeal", we discover that it took "the better part of a decade" to eradicate the Sandkings plague.
Awards and nominations
- In 1995 for the role of Simon Kress actor Beau Bridges was nominated for the prize Emmy Award in the category "Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series".
- In 1996 The Outer Limits TV-series was nominated to the prize Gemini Awards, including Beau Bridges received a nomination in the category "Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series", and episode "SandKings" was nominated in the category "Best TV Movie or Mini-Series" and "Best Sound in a Dramatic Program or Series". Also, for this episode there was nominated Joseph L. Scanlan as "Best Direction in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series" and Peter Outerbridge as Best Performance by an "Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series".[1]