It’s tough economic times right now, and like everyone else, I am
generally trying to be as frugal as possible. Alas, I have a weakness:
collectibles. And Bif Bang Pow! has seen fit to tempt me with a series
of LOST bobbleheads. Currently, there are four, but at least one
more is coming this summer, and I suspect that one will soon be joined
by at least a couple of others.
When I found out about these
bobbleheads, I knew that I would be buying Daniel Faraday and Richard
Alpert, two of the show’s most fascinating characters. I wasn’t so sure
about Dr. Edgar Halliwax, one of the many DHARMA filmstrip pseudonyms of
Pierre Chang, the enigmatic man finally revealed in season five as
ghost-whispering freighter fella Miles’ father. While I like the whole
parent-child reconciliation angle and have found the filmstrips
intriguing, I confess he’s not a character I’ve really connected with.
Nonetheless, I decided I couldn’t leave him out in the cold. So I
purchased Edgar, or Mark, or Marvin, or Pierre, and he now stands on my
piano with his fellow bobbling Island-dwellers. The reason he is
identified not as Pierre but as Edgar is that he is caught in a moment
from the filmstrip in which that pseudonym is introduced.
In
this ominous video, he holds a white rabbit with a number 15 on the side
while he speaks of the mysterious properties of the Orchid station,
which facilitates time travel. He then proceeds to freak out because
there are suddenly two #15 bunnies in the same room; as Back to the Future‘s Doc Brown could tell you, that right there is a recipe for disaster.
Including the black base, which, in white, has “Dr. Edgar Halliwax” on
the front, “LOST” on the back and a generic DHARMA symbol on the top,
this bobblehead stands nearly seven inches tall. Edgar has black shoes,
grayish pants and a white lab coat with an Orchid patch on it. He wears a
yellow tie with blue and black stripes, and in his arms, he cradles the
red-eyed bunny with the 15 written on its side. His hands are clearly
visible and are the same fleshy tone as his face, which looks
characteristically serious. His lips are slightly parted, as if he’s
about to say something important, and his left eyebrow is slightly
arched while the eye beneath it bulges just a bit, as if to imply a
Spockian “Fascinating.”
Like the other bobbleheads in this
series, Edgar is frustratingly silent, though as I can’t really think of
too many iconic lines from him, especially if it’s just going to be
limited to this filmstrip, it doesn’t really bother me much. I find it a
little curious that he was chosen for bobblehead representation when he
is really a pretty minor character, but he is mythologically
significant, as are the other characters depicted thus far. If he turns
up on the show again, I feel that thanks to Bif Bang Pow!, I will have a
deeper appreciation for him.
As bobbleheads go, Edgar is
quite realistic-looking, and it must be a treat for Francois Chau to see
his likeness preserved in such a manner. I have a hunch Edgar, priced
at twelve dollars, is the least popular of the line thus far, but for
those as deeply immersed in the show as I am, this no-nonsense scientist
is a good guy to have looking over your shoulder.
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