The Box / Bechdel Test

Long before it was revitalized, Shadows had lost the edge of horror at BU. Two 5-10 minute mini-episodes, that were not edited, from 2013 partnered Shadows with Pals ‘n’ Friends, a sketch-comedy show on BUTV10. The “better” of the two, "The Training Episode," lost the entirety of the sync-sound, without any backup from the camera or remaining script reference; all that remains is the video. The other, “The Box Episode” is a jagged attempt to mix the witty banter of room-mates with a tense supernatural mystery. Written without censorship, much of the banter consisted of insults, swearing, and the stereotypes of men portrayed specifically through a triage of female actors—citing the Bechdel test upfront in inferred inspiration. The trio come across a packaged box, take it back to their living room, where a fierce game of Smash Brothers is being played, and argue over both the video games, the ownership of the box, if hentai is better than regular pornography, if stress animals indicate weakness in an owner, and finally if it’s ethical to open the box. They do; it cuts to black; they appear dead, their room taped off, and two female Agents come downstairs, grumbling about “another one this week.” The one truly humorous moment is the very end, where one Agent asks the other “hey, did you ever hear about the Bechdel Test?” reminiscent of the first words of the episode, and the other, as played by Bianca H. H. Takahashi, replies “Yeah, my boyfriend told me about it.”

"The Box episode" brought to light the major problem that plagued Shadows at that time: disorganization coupled with a lax attitude. While "Box" had technical proficiency, there was little thought put into the content and language of the script, the pacing and the tension both favored the comedic aspects of the material instead of the suspenseful elements, and finally, despite the entirety of the episode being shot, the first and only attempt at editing by the original crew resulted in less than thirty seconds of footage interlaced together. (It was later edited almost to completion by Justin von Bosau, but was again never finished, this time because the higher producers saw what had been done and convinced him it was not going to come out anyway due to the story quality. It was in this stage that it's name was somewhat changed to "The Bechdel Test.")

While it remains unreleased, "The Box Episode" is significant as a major contribution towards the 2015 reboot of the show.