The Unused Door

[NikoMetsPlus]

Interesting.....

In the "Cannonball" episode, when John is climbing the ladder in the Mine Shaft and entering the Shrine, you can see that left (active) cabinet leading down to the Tomb of Ancient Kings is closed. That tells me that the Shine-Tomb passageway(s) were acting up big time in Early Season 1.

It wouldn't be the only passageway to have problems. The "door" from the Observatory to the west into the  Green Door room often acted up.

EDIT: Also, the only way to truly know if that right door was indeed a door that could have been used, would have been if we saw the Shrine in the "Keys" run. Unfortunately, the run was horrible after the glitch, and since the credits didn't wander around in Season 1, we never saw that....

[The Red Jaguars]

The main Shrine-Ancient Kings door did open in the "John Sutter" run when Jennifer grabbed the artifact. That episode was taped a day before "Alhambra". And in that run, the other cabinet door didn't open. But yeah, the early Season 1 episodes had some pretty bad production errors. Just look at runs like "Lost Logbooks", "Belshazzar", and "Dead Man's Hand". They all had some really bad production errors. I wouldn't be surprised if "Alhambra" suffered the same fate as those runs.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

In any run in which the artifact was grabbed, "all of the doors of the temple would unlock." So just going by this logic, then episodes in which the artifact was grabbed and the Shrine or Dark Forest was shown would have that right passageway open in most- if not all-  instances if that was actually meant to be used as an accessible route. However, it never opened when any artifacts were grabbed and "all the doors unlocked." Therefore, any episode in which that passageway was opened was just a fluke in one way or another.

[GreenMonkeys#1]

In any run in which the artifact was grabbed, "all of the doors of the temple would unlock." So just going by this logic, then episodes in which the artifact was grabbed and the Shrine or Dark Forest was shown would have that right passageway open in most- if not all- instances if that was actually meant to be used as an accessible route. However, it never opened when any artifacts were grabbed and "all the doors unlocked." Therefore, any episode in which that passageway was opened was just a fluke in one way or another.

To prove your statement even further, I watched the Atocha & Chandragupta runs and the door was still shut, even after "all the doors are opened". Could possible be sealed permanently.

[The Red Jaguars]

It was also sealed in a lot of the early Season 1 runs too. I agree with PP4L that is if were really a route to the Shrine, then we should see it being used in at least one episode. Even an early win such as Map to the Lost Gold Mine does not show the passage open. I think the passage was just another exit to the back of the temple, similar to the other golden door the temple guard came out of. Which is what I always thought all these years at least. Here are some runs where the artifact is grabbed and the door never opens:

Map to the Lost Gold Mine



Trojan Horseshoe



Cobra Staff



Lost Lariat

[NikoMetsPlus]

All good points.

I wonder why the "active" Shrine door didn't open in the Cannonball or Horseshoe run. Odd.....

I'm still wondering why they installed a mechanism in there to automatically unlock the door, only to never use it.

I am 100% sure that it did have that option, but it was just set to never open. You know how the Heart Room/Medusa was fully-locked during the Wheel Room/Rock Quarry layouts even after the artifact was received? I think the "mechanism" was set to "never open" for that room.

I also think that the right Shrine & Golden Doors was set to "never open". Just think about it. Why would they install a mechanism (We do know that the door opened automatically along with the left Shrine and the other Spiders Lair Door in "Keys") if it was a door with nothing behind it? Like I said earlier, the golden door closest to the front of the temple on right was indeed a dummy door. We know that there was nothing behind it in the Swampy area. And it didn't auto-open in "Keys" by accident.

Again, I'm pretty sure that when the door auto-opened in Keys in the Golden Doors area, it auto-unlocked them in the Shrine as well. Thus, if we ever saw the Shrine in the "Keys" run post error, I'm confident would see both  Shrine cabinets swung-open. Unfortunatly, Lisa couldn't understand that she had to move towards the object, and going back to the Cave of Size made the most sense for the "Cool Customer".

[GreenMonkeys#1]

While Lisa may have been fooled by the Golden Doors, I will never have sympathy for such a poor contestant who after seeing this, gives up.