Shadow People (webcast)

Shadow People
Main character(s):	Giles
Featuring:	Tasha, Maxie, Agamya
Main setting:	London, 9 May 2019
Key crew
Publisher:	BBV Productions
Editor:	Lucy Wood-Ives
Writer:	James Hornby
Release details
Premiere network:	YouTube
Release date:	26 February 2021
Format:	1x5 minute webcast
P.R.O.B.E.
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P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 1
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You may wish to consult Shadow People (disambiguation) for other, similarly-named pages.

Shadow People 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

Giles​ and the PROBE​ team are stalked by mysterious beings in this new PROBE adventure from BBV​ Productions.

Plot

On 9 May 2021, Giles records a video diary reporting a new sighting of Shadow People, mysterious shadowy apparitions similar to ghosts who are often glimpsed in locations where other supernatural occurrences have also been reported. In this instance, he, Tasha, Maxie and Agamya Akhtar visited the London Palladium theatre to investigate reports of a ghostly Victorian woman appearing on stage.

Throughout the investigation — which eventually uncovers that the "ghost" was actually a vision of another time projected by an Artari Time Projector accidentally bought on eBay by the stage manager for use as a prop — they feel themselves being watched, though they initially don't may much attention to this, assuming it to be a result of the haunting. However, the visions continue even after Maxie switches off the Time Projector, with her spotting a Shadow Person looking at her from a corner of the stage as she packs it up, and Agamya spotting another lurking behind the car as the P.R.O.B.E. operatives leave, with both shadowy beings vanishing as soon as the mortals try to approach them.

After getting back to P.R.O.B.E. HQ, the team discuss theories on the Shadow People. Maxie Masters believes them to be curious, but essentially harmless "stalks" peeking through from another dimension. However, Giles and the others take a significantly more pessimistic view of the Shadow People, as they were present on a mission to St Thomas's Chapel "last month" when, sent to investigate violent noises and screams reported by locals, the P.R.O.B.E. operatives entered the Chapel only for all the sounds to stop and the humans to find themselves surrounded by a huge crowd of Shadow People, who simply looked at them, vanishing whenever the humans tried to interact with them, until said humans finally gave up and went home. Still puzzled, then, by the nature of the entities, Giles decides to contact "the other agencies" to see if they have any further information.

Some time later, Giles records an addendum to the video diary, outlining that he did not in fact get any substantial results from his round of phone calls. Agamya's search of the P.R.O.B.E. Archive also fails to turn up any records that might have been left there about the Shadow People during Liz's days. An unsettled Agamya then shares her theory that the Shadow People are malevolent djinns, harbingers of "misfortune and disease". However, Giles ultimately decides to stop pouring so much time and mental energy into the investigation, coming round to accepting that P.R.O.B.E. will most likely never find an explanation for the Shadow People, and that they should focus on supernatural phenomena which actually present a tangible threat.

After the end of Giles's video diary itself, and more, short bit of footage is added, showing a single Shadow Person gliding forwards from the end of a long, bleak-looking corridor until it leaps directly at the camera, at which point the screen goes dark.

Cast

• Bill Baggs - Giles

Characters

• Tasha Williams
• Maxie Masters
• Agamya Akhtar

Mentioned only

• Liz Shaw

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

• The Shadow People "materialise at will".
• Giles believes his irrational fear of the Shadow People goes back to his childhood, with him having a hazy memory of "a haunting shadow at the end of the bed".
• One of the text messages "intercepted" by P.R.O.B.E., which alerted them to the sightings of the Victorian "ghost", compared it to "something off Doctor X".
• Agamya Akhtar grew up in Bangladesh.

Story notes

• The YouTube video title calls the story Giles Case File - Shadow People, but the title card in the video calls it Case File - Shadow People.

Continuity

• Giles compares Shadow People to ghosts. He previously cited ghosts as P.R.O.B.E.'s bread-and-butter in WC: Peckham Poltergeist ^[+]Loading...["Peckham Poltergeist (webcast)"].
• Doctor X, an in-universe analogue of Doctor Who itself, was first mentioned in PROSE: In Search of Doctor X ^[+]Loading...["In Search of Doctor X (short story)"]. The series would later be the focus of another P.R.O.B.E. short, WC: Doctor X ^[+]Loading...["Doctor X (webcast)"].
• Giles refers back to Liz Shaw's days at P.R.O.B.E.. She was shown working at P.R.O.B.E. in the original P.R.O.B.E. films starting with HOMEVID: The Zero Imperative ^[+]Loading...["The Zero Imperative (home video)"], and Giles was shown working under her in the last one, HOMEVID: When to Die ^[+]Loading...["When to Die (home video)"].
• The file on the Shadow People was referenced by Sir Andrew Williams in HOMEVID: A Message From Sir Andrew ^[+]Loading...["A Message From Sir Andrew (home video)"] when he gave his thoughts on Giles's case files to date, with him believing the Shadow People file was one of the more on-topic entries. Images of the Shadow People themselves and of the Time Projector are also seen in the story.

External links

• Official Shadow People page at bbvproductions.co.uk