Stacey Facade (webcast)

Stacey Facade
Main character(s):	Giles
Featuring:	Tasha, Agamya, Maxie, Sir Andrew
Main enemy:	Stacey Facade
Main setting:	London, 12-14 February 2019
Key crew
Publisher:	BBV Productions
Editor:	Lucy Wood-Ives
Writer:	James Hornby
Release details
Premiere network:	YouTube
Release date:	22 January 2021
Format:	1x6 minute webcast
P.R.O.B.E.
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Next →	Manchester
P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 1
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Next →	Varunastra

Stacey Facade was a video diary webcast released by BBV Productions on their YouTube channel in 2021, later incorporated into the P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 1 DVD release.

Summary

P.R.O.B.E. director Giles's video diaries chronicle his whirldwind romance with a mysterious woman called Stacey Facade, who, as the name implies, is not all she seems.

Plot

On 12 February 2019, P.R.O.B.E. director Giles records an uncharacteristically-cheerful video diary reporting that he has fallen in love for the first time in his life, with a woman called Stacey Facade. Insisting that she's his perfect woman, he seems strangely oblivious to his team's mistrust of her, indulgently construing it as jealousy. He cuts off the video diary upon receiving a text message from Stacey.

On 13 February, he records a follow-up, recounting his dinner date with Stacey last night and their subsequent trip to the Royal Observatory where they spent the night stargazing, with Stacey proving surprisingly knowledgeable about astronomy and alien planets. He abruptly reveals that, enamoured with the idea of exploring the entire planet with Stacey, beginning with New Zealand, he has decided to hand in his notice as a member of P.R.O.B.E., leaving Tasha Williams in charge until a replacement is formally appointed — and blankly ignores Agamya's entreaties of reconsidering this rash decision.

On 14 February, however, it is again Giles who records a diary, rather than Tasha, and a contrite Giles explains that it has transpired that Stacey was in fact a love wraith from the planet Succuba who used hypnotic pheromones to ensnare Giles, not because she actually loved him but in order to feed on his positive emotions. Her hold on Giles was broken when Maxie made him a drink a "concoction" she'd devised to counteract the pheromones, before deactivating Stacey's cloaking device to reveal her true alien appearance. Though Sir Andrew lets Giles take back his resignation without consequences thanks to Tasha, his daughter, arguing his case, Giles is left questioning his own reliability.

Cast

• Bill Baggs - Giles

Characters

• Agamya Akhtar
• Stacey Facade
• Maxie Masters
• Sir Andrew Williams
• Tasha Williams

Mentioned only

• Liz Haggard
• Archie MacTavish

Crew

• Writer - James Hornby
• Script editor - Lucy Wood-Ives
• Art - Warren Lewis
• Theme - Mark Ayres
• Logo - Lucas Kovacs
• Editing and Post-production - Callum Brown and Bill Baggs
• With special thanks to Hunter O'Connell and James Wylder at Arcbeatle Press

Worldbuilding

• Giles met Stacey Facade shortly after banishing "a pack of Shed Scales" to "the Appletide Abyss".
• Shared interests between Stacey and Giles include flowers and chocolate.

Story notes

• Shed Scales were used with permission from Niki Haringsma.
• The YouTube video title calls the story Giles Case File - Stacey Facade, but the title card in the video calls it Case File - Stacey Facade.

Continuity

• Giles recalls that Liz Haggard is currently in Spain with her her own partner when justifying his decision to drop everything to move to New Zealand with Stacey Facade. The Haggards' imminent departure for Spain was established at the end of HOMEVID: When to Die ^[+]Loading...["When to Die (home video)"], precipitating Liz's retirement and thereafter Giles's promotion to P.R.O.B.E. director.
• Giles recalls he "failed" the late Archie. Giles's guilt over Archie's passing had been established in PROSE: The Door We Forgot ^[+]Loading...["The Door We Forgot (short story)"] and would remain a running theme throughout subsequent Case Files as well as Arcbeatle Press's Out of the Shadows anthology; the very next short, WC: Manchester ^[+]Loading...["Manchester (webcast)"], gave a first glimpse of the events of Archie's death itself.
• P.R.O.B.E. is currently the United Kingdom's "only line of defence" against hostile alien incursions, with Giles feeling his small organisation is unprepared with the magnitude of that responsibility. This was referenced in PROSE: Preternatural Days ^[+]Loading...["Preternatural Days (short story)"] and implicitly riffed on the status quo established on televised Doctor Who in TV: Resolution ^[+]Loading...["Resolution (TV story)"] and TV: Spyfall ^[+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"] that Torchwood and UNIT had both been disbanded or halted, something over which the Thirteenth Doctor berated C in the latter TV story.
• HOMEVID: Lauren Anderson ^[+]Loading...["Lauren Anderson (home video)"], a later Case File, would return to Stacey Facade and establish what became of her after the events of this story.
• The title card for this short was seen in WC: P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER ^[+]Loading...["P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER (webcast)"].

External links

• Official Stacey Facade page at bbvproductions.co.uk