Ex-President (home video)
Ex-President was a video short by BBV Productions, exclusive to the P.R.O.B.E. Case Files - Volume 2 DVD release. Written by James Hornby, it was the second and final P.R.O.B.E. short to feature a licensed appearance by Faction Paradox after Daylight Savings. It also brought in the character of Felix Mather, used with Lance Parkin's permission, and sought to resolve the contradiction between his depiction as President of the United States in the 2010s and the real-world election of Barack Obama.
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
On the morning of 11 May 2021, while continuing her work of sorting out the long-disorderly P.R.O.B.E. Archive, Agamya Akhtar finds a misfiled document from 2010 documenting P.R.O.B.E.'s involvement in removing an alien security device from the White House at the behest of the J.D.S.. What catches Agamya's eye is that the President of the United States' signature is "Felix Mather", rather than the man who was really President in 2010 as far as common history records — and whom Giles himself remembers encountering during that transatlantic adventure.
Discussing the matter with the team, Giles is surprised to discover that while Giles and Agamya have "never heard" of Mather, Tasha Williams and Azacca Dixon remember him perfectly well. Internet searches are inconclusive: there are as many results for Mather as for Obama, covering the exact same period of history. P.R.O.B.E. can only conclude that they are dealing two alternative histories that have become inextricably interwoven. With Obama seeming to be the dominant version of events, Giles starts to wonder what actually happened to Mather: in the Obama version of history, his rise from astronaut to Congressman to Vice President is still recorded, but thereafter he disappears from the record altogether.
Midway through recording a case file on the investigation thus far, Giles receives a phone call from Az, who he assumes has found a lead on Mather. Giles stops the recording, promising imminent "updates".
The video case file resumes with footage of Giles standing outside a house which Giles believes to be Mather's last-known address, an unassuming-looking suburban house. Gaining entry into the house, Az finds that Mather does indeed still reside there, and talks with him at length, eventually convincing him to grant Giles a private interview — though Mather forbids Giles to take his camera inside.
As subsequently narrated by Giles, his ingress into the house sees him shocked at the sight of Mather, who, although not unhealthy in any conventional sense, has a peculiar aura, as if shouldn't exist. Mather explains that his troubles all started with a strange meeting in the Oval Office one night, when a "Faction" of men and women wearing "cloaks and skull masks" appeared. They explained that they wanted to remove Mather's Presidency from history in the hope of sufficiently altering the flow of event as to avert another, later Presidency whose holder was one of the Faction's "enemies".
With the Faction not giving him a choice, Mather found himself at the centre of a strange ritual. When he came to, he was in his own home, and turned on the news to find that Obama was President in his stead. The following day, out in the street, he found that all who encountered him shunned him, as if instinctively avoiding the sight of him — forcing him into his reclusive lifestyle.
With Maxie pledging to try and free him of that temporal side-effect, though Giles is not optimistic as to her prospect of success, the Bureau is forced to close the case: the central mystery is solved, and they don't know how to even begin to investigate the true identity and agenda of the "Faction".
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
Mentioned only[[edit] | [edit source]]
Crew[[edit] | [edit source]]
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Before Agamya Akhtar joined P.R.O.B.E., Giles and Archie did the filing in "their spare time", often stuffing important documents in arbitrary places "just to get it over with".
- In addition to the Cyberon head, the Cyberon drug syringe, the teddy bear, blood-stained blades, and a number of VHS tapes, the Dr Smith shelf holds what appear to be dinosaur bones, a blue sphere, and an unidentified glowing red object. Green, luminescent tendrils connect Box to the Cyberon head and the syringe.
Story notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- This story continues the Faction Paradox plotline which began in Daylight Savings and would have been concluded in the unproduced Case File Faction Paradox.[1]
- The story was advertised as featuring the "first live-action appearance" by Faction Paradox, but this was only in the form of a short, non plot-relevant cutaway at the beginning of the episode; for most of the story, the only live-action footage depicted Giles, as usual for the P.R.O.B.E. Case Files, and images of Faction Paradox members were static illustrations with voiceover narration from Giles.
- Jonathan Dennis's short story Hanging Chads, published in the charity anthology Walking in Eternity and later referenced in Head of State, previously suggested that Faction Paradox was responsible for the uncertainty in the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential election.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Felix Mather was originally President of the United States in the early 2010s, as depicted in PROSE: Trading Futures [+]Loading...["Trading Futures (novel)"] and PROSE: Father Time [+]Loading...["Father Time (novel)"]. In a new version of history, Barack Obama was President instead; Obama's Presidency was confirmed in-universe in various sources including TV: The End of Time [+]Loading...["The End of Time (TV story)"].
- The Dr Smith shelf is seen, in an extended version of the visual preciously used in WC: Varunastra [+]Loading...["Varunastra (webcast)"] and WC: P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER [+]Loading...["P.R.O.B.E. CASE FILES - TRAILER (webcast)"]. In addition to Box, the Cyberon head from PROSE: The Blue Scream of Death [+]Loading...["The Blue Scream of Death (short story)"] and the vial of Cyberon from HOMEVID: The Only Cure [+]Loading...["The Only Cure (home video)"], it contains several blood-stained knives — an apparent reference to WC: Varunastra [+]Loading...["Varunastra (webcast)"] —, a teddy bear as mentioned in PROSE: Out of the Box [+]Loading...["Out of the Box (short story)"], and the VHS tape collection from WC: Doctor X [+]Loading...["Doctor X (webcast)"], as well as several new objects.
- The Jovian Diplomacy Service was introduced in WC: Varunastra [+]Loading...["Varunastra (webcast)"].
- The Faction altered Felix Mather's history in an attempt to avert the rise to the Presidency of an enemy of theirs. This enemy is Lolita, long-time enemy of the survivors of the Faction throughout The Faction Paradox Protocols and The True History of Faction Paradox, who was revealed in PROSE: Head of State [+]Loading...["Head of State (novel)"] to have posed as American Presidential candidate Lola Denison at one stage in her ultimately-thwarted master plan.
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official Ex-President page at bbvproductions.co.uk
Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- ↑ Aristide Twain (9 March 2022). Eight "Lost" BBV Projects. Aristide Twain on Tumblr.
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