Nor was I (like I said earlier, I wouldn't expect much from a TV show, especially one that barely manages to CG a submarine in). But an explanation as to how/why it came to be would have been nice to say the least.
All right, oatmeal. You're a combination of Indiana Jones, Fox Mulder and Robert Langdon, the kind of guy whose services are called upon whenever something extremely queer and possibly supernatural arises. Flanked by your faithful-bordering-on-irritating assistant Popo, you're now in some nondescript-but-typically-backwards foreign country to examine the case of a peculiar crystal skull that has just been discovered.
(this scenario takes place in a world where crystal skulls haven't been debunked nor linked to nuked fridges)
Popo: Professor, professor! What do you make of this?!
Dr. oatmeal: At first glance, I'd say what we have here is a human skull entirely made of crystal...
Popo: But professor! Human beings aren't made of crystal?!
Dr. oatmeal: No, they're not, Popo. Which is why I'd rather not jump to conclusions at this point.
*several days later*
Popo: Professor, professor! They found something else! A full human skeleton made of crystal! Well, not exactly "full": only the skull is missing!
Dr. oatmeal: Ah-ha! So just as I suspected, this
is a human skull made of crystal indeed! Well, time to go home, Popo! Mystery solved!
Popo: Is it?
Dr. oatmeal: Of course! What else would you need, silly Popo? Now pack your things and hop in the trunk of the oatmobile before I try to abandon you once again.
Now, you might argue that it's "just a statue", not a crystal skull or anything particularly odd like that.
I'd have to disagree once again. And not because of the unusual number of toes.
Sure, one might wonder why it was only given four toes (in the context of a
story, it's kinda natural to wonder why that particular element is introduced), but technically speaking, anybody
could sculpt a four (or six, or twelve)-toe foot, even without any kind of supernatural element being involved, even in our real world.
If anything, considering the island appears to be magically cut off from the outside world, I'd be weirded out by the
size of the thing, the sheer scope of the enterprise, not the number of toes.
Sorry, Sayid, but focusing on that aspect (or on the fact that part of the statue is missing, which is apparently fucking weird because
statues never collapse) is a bit strange ("Hey, Sayid, what's wrong? What's that you're reading? -... I don't know what is more disquietingthe fact that this cat can speak, or that it's eating lasagna...").
And if you don't think the size of the thing is remarkable, in typical
Lost fashion, the show itself is forthcoming with ammunition for my argument...
Remember when the Man in Black was giving Desmond a little tour of the island and stopped by a well?
"You don't seem suitably impressed by my well, Desmond. I'll let you know that back in the day, we didn't have no fancy tools to dig holes like that. We had to do it with our bare hands.
Our bare hands, you hear me?!"
Now, as a bespectacled nerd, I don't want to be dissing the manual labor involved (and the Man in Black would like to remind you that it was
literally manual), but we're still talking about a hole that wasn't deep enough for a Scotsman to fall in it and break something. If we're to be somewhat impressed by that, what about a statue that once dwarfed the Colossus of Rhodes? Or the temple? One has to wonder how excited the Man in Black would sound when introducing those to his tourist group.
Between that, the monster summoning device and the cork (to list only the most WTF examples), they definitely had some 'splainin' to do regarding the Egypt stuff is all I'm saying.
And I'm not even talking about doing another episode set in the distant past, a quite possibly expensive "Egypt-centric" offering. Just a few lines here and there could have helped quite a bit. If they could find time for Sun's "I hit my head and forgot how to speak English" plot, surely, giving the Man in Black a couple of lines about all that was within the realm of possibilities.
For example, instead of having Locke lead Desmond to a shabby, not particularly awe-inspiring well in the woods and explain to him how it was built and why,
i.e. something we'd actually see for ourselves a few episodes down the line anyway, he could have shown him the ruins of the temple and go "long ago, silly Jacob briefly allowed those people to come and go as they pleased between the island and the outside world (*), blahblah, damn Egyptians were eventually corrupted by their hubris and damn near destroyed the island, blahblah, had to be taken care of so it wouldn't happen again... and here's the pit where they kept their prisoners. I'm showing you this because- HUMPH!"
(*)
For added flavor, you could be cute and hint that this brief period of time where the island was accessible was in part responsible for the myth of Atlantis enduring for so long.
For added added flavor, you could also have Jacob tell Jack and the others that he tried that little experiment with the Egyptians because he felt a bit shitty for his brother. He turned him into a monster in a fit of rage, and all the guy ever wanted was to see the outside world, his roots. And although he couldn't let his brother leave the island in fear of what he could do with his powers, he thought he could at least try and bring the world
to him instead, in a relatively controlled environment. But things didn't work out...
Now, I'm obviously no writer, and I won't pretend those are "
absolutely awesome ideas you guys!", but considering the ingredients I'm cooking with, I think it's not
too bad: it economically ties up a few loose ends and provides some much-needed characterization for the Senet Siblings. I'm not sure how an entire team of writers whose lives supposedly revolved around the show for years couldn't come up with better than what we actually got.
And to guide Widmore to the island. Somehow. By positioning the mirror on Wallace/108 ("aren't our numbers
awesome, you guys?!"). For some reason. And it wasn't actually necessary anyway ("oh, I'm sure they'll find another way... *shrug*" ... damn, Jacob, you so nonchalant).
Hrm.
Also,
the showrunners tried to explain why Jacob was keeping track of his candidates
both at the lighthouse and in that cave (they reason it probably
really was Jacob's cave, because of that "private joke" thing the Man in Black found there... no, that one was never explained, by the way, but Darlton would probably tell you that's why it's "
private"! can't argue with that!).
It may seem redundant at first, but
what if! ... what if Jacob was actually using that cave to
mislead the Man in Black?! "Maybe that's why Kate's name was crossed out in the cave!", they say, adding that it is good speculation
indeed, hmm-hmmmm!
... Even ignoring the fact we never saw Kate's name in that cave (they said it
was there but the footage was cut, and it sure makes perfect sense that they wouldn't pay much attention to that only to later bring up that it's quite intriguing how Kate's name is crossed out at the cave but
not at the Lighthouse and
what could that possibly meeeean?), even ignoring the fact that never went anywhere, providing the Man in Black with a fake (and
barely faked anyway) list of candidates wouldn't help much, if at all. It wouldn't be hard for him to identify the true candidates: they're the ones he can't directly kill. And we've seen he doesn't mind killing people.
"Ah, but what if he had already killed everybody on the island but Kate (conveniently enough), and realized only then that she was actually still a candidate? He couldn't kill her, and there'd be nobody else on the island to do the job for him!"
He could just set a booby trap, for example.
Dumb as it is, the rules would apparently allow that, based on what happened in that sub: "sure, I set the trap, but
she's the one who triggered it!"
Naturally, that would work for any candidate, at any time. It sure shouldn't have taken him centuries, all things considered. Guess that never occurred to the showrunners in the six years they had that plan in mind.
