The Sandkings

This article is about the TV episode. For other uses, see Sandkings.

"The Sandkings"
The Outer Limits episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 1
Directed by	Stuart Gillard
Written by	Melinda M. Snodgrass (Based on the work by George R. R. Martin)
Production code	1
Original air date	26 March 1995
Guest actors
Beau Bridges as Dr. Simon Kress Helen Shaver as Cathy Kress Dylan Bridges as Josh Kress Kim Coates as Dave Stockley Lloyd Bridges as Colonel Kress Patricia Harras as Debbie

"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. At 92:38 minutes, "The Sandkings" is twice the normal length of other episodes in the series.

The episode was highly acclaimed, garnering five Gemini Award nominations. One of these was in the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series for Beau Bridges' leading role as Simon Kress, which also garnered nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series and the CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series.

Introduction

A scientist steals specimens of Martian life from his subterranean workplace laboratory to illegally continue research on an aborted, classified government project 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 worshiped...like a god?

”

Plot

Dr. Simon Kress' (Beau Bridges) research for the government on Martian life is aborted because one of his specimens escaped his lab and almost made it to the surface. However, Kress does not 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. Kress' obsession with the project causes his relationship with his wife Cathy (Helen Shaver) to break down.

The sandkings evolve into two distinct groups, a white group and a red group, and settle on opposite sides of their glass enclosure. Kress comes to believe that he is a god to his sandkings when the white group builds a sand structure that resemble his face. He smashes the sand structure of the red group who didn't do the same, one of them getting loose and stinging him. He kills his former supervisor Dave Stockley (Kim Coates) by tossing him into the enclosure, where the sandkings then devour him. Later, he finds himself in the basement with the red sandkings, who have made a nest with the face of Stockley. He breaks a gas pipe to cause an explosion in an attempt to kill all of the sandkings. 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.

”

Aftermath

The Sandkings thrived after their escape from Kress' home laboratory. Fragments from the episode are included in the final episode of season one, "The Voice of Reason". There, clips from "The Sandkings" 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 the Sandkings plague has been eradicated, which took "the better part of a decade" to complete.

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 cruelty (there is a difference between cruelty and aggression), which turns the initially harmless Sandkings into aggressive creatures.
There are no Maws that act to control the Sandkings
No betting takes place even though that is a pretty large plot point in the original story
The faces don't change based on the SandKing's perception of their "God"
There are only 2 groups, not 4.
No psionics explaining any of the characters action
One murder instead of at least 10
No real elaboration about the SandKings
Most of the horror elements have been removed , the original story was mostly science fiction with a small bit of horror
All of the actions taken to destroy the SandKings are changed
Family man versus rich bachelor
Without the Maws and their increasing size and intelligence as well as their psionic ability there is no way to examine the idea of superintelligence or evolution.
In the original story at least one alien is involved in importing the SandKings in this retelling humans bring the Kings back ourselves.
The episode examines the themes of hubris and ecological catastrophe rather than the responsibility of parent ('God') to a child and how that child will 'grow up'.

Awards 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".
Beau Bridges was nominated for the CableACE Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series.

External links

"The Sandkings" at the Internet Movie Database
"Sandkings" at The Outer Limits website
"Sandkings" at TV.com

The Outer Limits episodes

1963 series
(episodes)

Season 1	"The Galaxy Being" "The Hundred Days of the Dragon" "The Architects of Fear" "The Man with the Power" "The Sixth Finger" "The Man Who Was Never Born" "O.B.I.T." "The Human Factor" "Corpus Earthling" "Nightmare" "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" "The Borderland" "Tourist Attraction" "The Zanti Misfits" "The Mice" "Controlled Experiment" "Don't Open Till Doomsday" "ZZZZZ" "The Invisibles" "The Bellero Shield" "The Children of Spider County" "Specimen: Unknown" "Second Chance" "Moonstone" "The Mutant" "The Guests" "Fun and Games" "The Special One" "A Feasibility Study" "Production and Decay of Strange Particles" "The Chameleon" "The Forms of Things Unknown"

Season 2	"Soldier" "Cold Hands, Warm Heart" "Behold, Eck!" "Expanding Human" "Demon with a Glass Hand" "Cry of Silence" "The Invisible Enemy" "Wolf 359" "I, Robot" "The Inheritors" "Keeper of the Purple Twilight" "The Duplicate Man" "Counterweight" "The Brain of Colonel Barham" "The Premonition" "The Probe"

1995 series
(episodes)

Season 1	"The Sandkings" "Corner of the Eye" "Under the Bed" "Dark Matters" "The Conversion" "Quality of Mercy" "The New Breed" "The Voyage Home" "Caught in the Act" "The Message" "I, Robot" "If These Walls Could Talk" "Birthright" "The Voice of Reason"

Season 2	"Stitch in Time" "Resurrection" "Unnatural Selection" "I Hear You Calling" "Mind Over Matter" "Beyond the Veil" "First Anniversary" "Straight and Narrow" "Trial by Fire" "Worlds Apart" "The Refuge" "Inconstant Moon" "From Within" "The Heist" "Afterlife" "The Deprogrammers" "Paradise" "The Light Brigade" "Falling Star" "Out of Body" "Vanishing Act" "The Sentence"

Season 3	"Bits of Love" "Second Thoughts" "Re-Generation" "Last Supper" "Stream of Consciousness" "Dark Rain" "The Camp" "Heart's Desire" "Tempests" "Awakening" "New Lease" "Double Helix" "Dead Man's Switch" "Music of the Spheres" "The Revelations of Becka Paulson" "Bodies of Evidence" "Feasibility Study" "A Special Edition"

Season 4	"Criminal Nature" "The Hunt" "Hearts and Minds" "In Another Life" "In the Zone" "Relativity Theory" "Josh" "Rite of Passage" "Glyphic" "Identity Crisis" "The Vaccine" "Fear Itself" "The Joining" "To Tell the Truth" "Mary 25" "Final Exam" "Lithia" "Monster" "Sarcophagus" "Nightmare" "Promised Land" "Balance of Nature" "The Origin of Species" "Phobos Rising" "Black Box" "In Our Own Image"

Season 5	"Alien Radio" "Donor" "Small Friends" "The Grell" "The Other Side" "Joyride" "The Human Operators" "Blank Slate" "What Will The Neighbors Think" "The Shroud" "Ripper" "Tribunal" "Summit" "Descent" "The Haven" "Deja Vu" "The Inheritors" "Essence of Life" "Stranded" "Fathers and Sons" "Star Crossed" "Better Luck Next Time"

Season 6	"Judgment Day" "The Gun" "Skin Deep" "Manifest Destiny" "Breaking Point" "The Beholder" "Seeds of Destruction" "Simon Says" "Stasis" "Down to Earth" "Glitch" "Decompression" "Abaddon" "The Grid" "Gettysburg" "Nest" "Final Appeal"

Season 7	"Family Values" "Patient Zero" "A New Life" "The Surrogate" "The Vessel" "Mona Lisa" "Replica" "Think Like a Dinosaur" "Worlds Within" "In the Blood" "Flower Child" "Abduction" "Lion's Den" "The Tipping Point" "The Human Factor" "Human Trials"

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