Battlestar Galactica

Episode #108 - "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down"

This document is ©2005, John Larocque. All rights reserved.

The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They look human. Some are programmed to think they are human. There are many copies. And they have a plan.

Synopsis

Billy and Dualla are having a date on the observation deck, and watching Vipers do a special flyby maneuver. She explained that they're showing off. "They know I'm in here... You date a special assistant to the President, word gets out." Billy asks how Adama is. "Been kind of acting funny lately. Seems distracted or something. He's been making all these weird calls from his quarters, you know, super secret... He doesn't want me log the calls, though. No trace file, nothing." "This just started?" "A few days ago." She asks, "Are you pumping me for information on about the Old Man?" "Of course not... I'm just asking a couple of questions." "Well, I hope you like the answers, because they're the last ones you're gonna to get for a while." She gives him another kiss. Billy reports this information to Laura aboard Colonial One, who agrees that Adama's been acting distracted and unfocused. Regarding the scrambled wirelsss calls, Billy argues they could be security related. "His odd behavior could be stress, pure and simple, exhaustion, paranoia." "But what if it's not?" "I cannot believe that we're actually entertaining the idea that Commander Adama has been somehow replaced by a Cylon duplicate." "Oh my gods Billy, I hope you're right."

Baltar is contemplating the scope of the work ahead of him and asks, "Is suicide really a sin?" Number Six replies, "A mortal one I'm afraid, but it's not that bad, is it Gaius?" At a rate of 11 hours per test sample and a population of 47,905, he calculates that it will take 61 years to test the entire population. Number Six feels sorry for him. "It's hard being a genius. There should be some perks." And then they go off and he has virtual sex with her in the lab. As he's moaning away, Starbuck enters and interupts him, and he quickly puts his pants back on. "What brings you to the lab at this time of the night?" "It's the middle of the afternoon." "What can I do for you?" "You can zip up your fly." She hands him her blood sample.

Tigh is holding a bottle and pours it out into the garbage. He then pulls out a picture of his wife from his desk (the one he burned with a cigar in the pilot episode), crumples it up and throws it away. On CIC, Gaeta reports a dradis contact. "Single raider. Looks like a recon patrol. Apollo and Beehive already have them in their sight." Tigh asks, "Where's the Old Man?" "He's not on board, sir... He left in a Raptor about an hour ago, no flight plan." Apollo scores a hit on the raider. "I winged him. Looks like I got his weapons system." The raider jumps out. "He's probably giving our position to every Cylon Baseship by now... Order them to execute to emergency jump procedures. Everyone rendezvous at the standby coordinates." The raider jumps back, and Gaeta remarks that it it appears to be flying around in circles. "Wounded bird can't fly home... Order Apollo to close with the raider but do not engage. Put a Raptor in the air. Put a Raptor in the air. As long as that thing's flopping around out there, tell them I want to suck in every electronic signal it makes." Tigh orders a stand down to condition two, and walks to the docking bay, where Adama is landing his Raptor. "Colonel Tigh, allow me to present your wife." "Ellen..."

Baltar receives a phone call from Laura, although his initial response indicates he thought it was Starbuck. "Doctor, I would like you to call me the moment Command Adama's test is complete, will you do that?" "Commander Adama cancelled his test a short time ago... He gave me another sample and said it had prioity... Some woman called Ellen." "Doctor Baltar, I would like you to resume testing Commander Adama's blood sample immediately. Thank you." In his quarters, Ellen tells Tigh, "Saul, I don't remember the past few weeks." "You've been on the Rising Star all this time?" "I guess so. The last thing I remember is being on Picon. I was at the airport, buying a ticket home, and hearing something about the Cylons. And then, just dreams, mostly dreams, until a couple of days ago. They told me I was knocked out when the Cylons attacked the airport, and someone just picked me up and put me on the last flight out. Some savior, I don't even know who."

Starbuck tells Tigh that they've having problems figuring out the FTL drive on the captured raider. She comments, "The wounded bird is jumping all over the place out there... And every time it jumps, it gives us more data we can use. But the question remains, what's it doing out there in the first place, and how long can they keep it up?" "The moment you have your FTL data, give me an update." Adama adds, "Let's not this thing linger out there longer than we have to." Tigh and Ellen have a reunion in his quarters. She apologises for things she's said and done and Tigh says that it's all in the past and that they can start over. He's interrupted on official business and meets with Laura on Colonial One. He rejects her theories that Adama has been behaving supiciously. "What about the fact that he left the Galactica without telling anyone where he was going, or when he would return, and at that very moment, a Cylon raider jumped into view and started acting strangely?" "I know exactly where he was. He was picking up my wife... It turns out she's been unconscious aboard the Rising Star ever since the attack... When Ellen stepped off that shuttle, I thought I was going to pass out." "I'd very much like to meet your wife, Colonel." Adama phones up Baltar and orders him to resume testing on Ellen.

The Commander is having dinner in his quarters with Laura Roslin, Lee Adama, and Saul and Ellen Tigh. Ellen is quite drunk, and comments, "There are a few people who still might wonder if a kindergarden teacher is really the right person to be President, but it's just a tiny, tiny minority." She tells Adama, "Lee here has grown into such a handsome man. I can only imagine what Zak must look like now. You are the spitting image of your mother, and I bet Zak takes just after his daddy." "Zak passed away a couple of years ago." She extends her foot underneath the table and touches Lee, who is taken aback. As a result, she loses her shoe, and has Lee return it to her later. Commander Adama asks a question. "The captain of the Rising Star was a little puzzled as to how you got on board his ship... The strange thing is, no one can recall giving you any medical assistance until about a week ago." She asks where Earth is and when they're going to get there. "That's classified information."

After the Tigh's leave, Laura asks, "You actually think that woman is a Cylon?" Lee replies, "Well, if she's not, then we're all in a lot of trouble." The Commander informs Laura that, "The scuttlebutt was that she slept with more than half of the fleet while Saul was in space... Ellen used to encourage the worst instincts in this guy, bring out the self-destructive streak in him." On the way back from the party, Ellen describes Adama as a stick in the mud. At Tigh's bunk, Ellen laughs, "Bill Adama doesn't know where earth is!" Baltar introduces himself to the Tigh's, and to Saul's dismay, she starts flirting with him. "Care to join us for a nightcap, Doctor?" Tigh warns them, "I'm watching you, both of you." Number Six adds, "And you should be wawtching her." Baltar leaves and she tries to convince Tigh that Adama was making passes at her at dinner. "Did you know he came to see me on the Rising Star. He'd come into my room, I'd pretend to be asleep and he'd sit by the side of my bed and then he'd touch me." "Why are you doing this. You're lying." "I am not. He was on that ship. And I'm gonna prove it. Let's go!"

Commander Adama is in the lab with Baltar, Lee and Laura. He asks about Ellen's test results. "I gave you her sample this morning." "I have started and stopped the test twice already now, so I'm running a little behind." Laura admits she told him to stop the test, because of Adama's recent odd behavior. "You can't deny that you've been making these... off-log calls, these mysterious trips off the ship." "Where did you hear that? Have you been spying on me on my own ship?" Baltar urges calm. "Ladies and gentlemen, please, please. We're in a laboratory. There are hazardous chemical compounds everywhere. That... that's a thermonuclear bomb for frak's sake." The Commander explained that he didn't want Tigh knowing about his trips to the Rising Star. "She's nothing but trouble and I wanted to keep her away from him as long as I could... [however] I couldn't refuse her access to her own husband without causing suspicion. Besides, I wanted her close to me." At this point, the Tigh's enter. "I told you he wanted me! ... I told you. He's been after me for years!" He tells Tigh he was afraid she might be a Cylon, and Tigh replies that Laura his test because she thought the Commander might be a Cylon.

In CIC, Gaeta informs Tigh, "The raider smoothed out its flight plan about two minutes ago... but he's not jumping for home." Tigh asks if reconnaissance detected any outgoing communications, and Gaeta replies that "it's likely it's just another distress signal." Tigh launches alert fighters to intercept the vessel, and Starbuck tells him, "I hate to tell you this but, I think it's been playing with us the entire time just waiting to see how we'd react." The Cylon ship is now on a suicide run, and Hot Dog destroys it just short of reaching the Galactica. Outside of CIC, Adama has a talk with Tigh about Ellen. "I know how you feel about her, Saul. She's been a negative force in your life and I'm sorry about that but it's the truth." "Maybe she was, everything was different then. She was different, I was different." Adama noted he's started drinking again but Tigh replies that he was celebrating. "Launching those fighters on a hunch... saved our ship." "Just doing my job." "You do your job. That's why I need you, Saul. That, and that we're friends. And I don't want anything to come between that, not even Ellen." "It won't."

On Caprica, it's day 28. Helo and Sharon are running through sewer pipes underneath the city. Sharon says they've sent an entire army after her. When she peers through a hubcap, there a many marching mechanical Cylons. "While they were holding me, I overheard some things. Plans, deployments. A big Cylon base at Delphi, a major hub. It's the best place to grab a ship and get off this frakkin' planet." Helo is tired and can't go any further, but Sharon tells him to keep going and he wonders why she never gets tired. "It's adrenaline. I'm not gonna die here, and I'm not gonna let you die here either." The next morning, Doral asks Number Six how they could have slipped away from the Cylon search party. "I think she loves him now, that she can't live without him. Her passion is making her more resourceful." "It bothers you, doesn't it?" "We'll get them in the end." "No, it bothers you that you've never experienced it." "You saw the way Helo was when we took her away? He was pathetic." "You can't help wondering what it would have been like to feel that intensely. Even in his anguish, he seemed... so alive." Number Six is crying as he says this.

Adama and company are assembled in Baltar's lab, where he announces, "Green. Green, everyone. Mrs. Tigh is definitely human." Adama apologises. "No hard feelings I hope, Ellen." "You don't want to frak with me, Bill. Try and remember that." "Don't frak with me either, Ellen." Number Six comments, "If only they knew that everyone passes these days... So what did her test result really say." "I'll never tell."

Ron Moore's Commentary

3/4/2005 -- This may be one of the sexiest shots of Six we've ever done. It's just her legs coming off the table. You know it's really amazing, quite remarkable, what we can get away with in terms of its sexual content, and sensuality, which I'm very proud of, and I make no apologies for it. I think it's phenomenal and great that we do it. I think it's interesting that the show is allowed to be an adult mature show... This gag is one of my favorites. She walks in, and what is he doing exactly? ... It's just so twisted you know. Baltar's such an interesting, twisted character, and [Starbuck's] reaction to him is perfect. (source: Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down podcast)

3/4/2005 -- In the pilot, he burns a picture of [David Eick's] wife, and we had to reshoot the photo when we cast the role with Kate Vernon. (source: Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down podcast)

3/4/2005 -- I always saw [the dinner party] as the centerpiece... This was as close to a comedy of manners as we could get. Here comes this woman into our little family, and Ellen is nothing like the rest of them. She's brash, she's loud, she's funny, she's outwardly sexual. She doesn't mind drinking too much in front of people and saying things that nobody else wants to hear. I think that it's interesting that she doesn't seem to live in the same world that they do, and she didn't. Everyone in this scene with the exception of Laura lived in the military world, a very sort of controlled environment. Even Laura lived in a world of politics, a place where people were very careful in what they say or do. And Ellen just hangs it out there... Just the fact that she makes these people uncomfortable, the fact that all of these people wish that she was anywhere but in that room, to me makes her worth having. (source: Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down podcast)

3/4/2005 -- Adama's entire emotional arch in this episode is about the fact that he was so worried about the return of Ellen into his friend's life that he started acting kind of strange, and got suspected of being a Cylon. And why does he care so much? He cares so much because Saul Tigh is a good man. He is a good officer. He's a very smart officer. And he has instincts that are very finely honed. And when the chips are down, Tigh can save your ass. And he just saved the ship's ass once again. And that's why I think the Cylon raider subplot was crucial to this episode... Tigh is not just a drunk. He's not just this guy that we get to make jokes about week in and week out. He does matter to Adama... [Adama] does not always instinctively know the right thing to do. He's not a perfect, archetypical sci-fi hero. He's a human being, he has flaws, he has blind spots and moments of inattention. There are moments when he's not making the right call. But he has this friend that he can rely on. And as long as that man is at his side, he knows that he is going to make it, one way, shape or form. And that's why we keep him around. Even though he drinks, even though he has this wife, even though he yells at Starbuck, even though he's a flawed man in many other ways, he's important. (source: Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down podcast)

3/4/2005 -- Six is a much more complicated character and Tricia is a complicated actress, and she conveys a lot here. It's really just the look on her face, as [Doral] talks, that tells the story. There's really nothing else going on here, except her longing, her inability to feel as deeply as human beings feel. I think that's a lovely, lovely moment. (source: Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down podcast)

9/2005 -- It was an interesting experiment in altering the tone of the show. I'm not eager to try another one. You can have humour in the show, that's important. But to try to do a whole piece that tongue in cheek with farce as the climax? I don't know if it's really our strong suit or where the show best lives. (source: Dreamwatch)

Commentary

Laura has taken Leoben's accusations seriously from "Flesh and Bone." She wanted Adama tested as a Cylon right away to remove that doubt from her mind. Adama's behavior in dealing with the Ellen Tigh matter merely fueled her suspicions. Just as Laura's worried Adama might be a Cylon, Adama himself was concerned that Colonel Tigh's wife might be a Cylon. When she was discovered aboard the Rising Star, he initially hid her existence from Tigh, and made several clandestine visits to the ship, before reuniting them. Adama and Laura both started and stopped the Cylon detection tests several times so their respective candidates would complete testing.

Ellen Tigh's story is that she was knocked unconscious when the Cylons attacked the airport at Picon, and picked up by an anonymous savior and brought on board one of the last flights out. She has memories of dreams but little else only a few days before the events of this episode.

Tigh and Ellen have decided to "start over" and treat her past behavior as "all in the past," but there's plenty of evidence it's still going on. Ellen touches Lee under the table with her shoe at the party. She accused Commander Adama of making passes at her and touching her. She flirts with Baltar who accepts offers her of a nightcap in front of Tigh. She made some interesting comments that "Bill Adama doesn't know where Earth is," and a reference to Roslin as a "kindergarden teacher."

Adama described Ellen as a negative influence in Tigh's life and said that he was getting used to him without a cup in his hand. (The cup remark is something he said earlier in "33.") Tigh told Adama that he wouldn't let Ellen get in the way of their friendship or his duties aboard the ship. The two of them have a strong bond, something that Ellen recognizes as a counterbalance to her own influence in his life. "You don't frak with me, Bill." "Don't frak with me either, Ellen."

Baltar is attracted to Starbuck, and his reaction to Laura's phone call indicates he looks forward to any contact he can have with her.

Baltar declared that Ellen Tigh was not a Cylon, but human, and refused to tell Number Six whether the results were true. The nuclear bomb is actually sitting in his lab, along with the hundreds of assembled blood samples, which Baltar calculated would take 61 years to test with his new functioning Cylon detector.

Baltar's calculation assumes that 21,956 days (the amoung of time it takes to test the population) is equivalent to 60.1534 years. He does this assuming a year is 365 days, which means he didn't factor in an extra day every four years.

There is continued interest in the FTL drive on the captured raider, which becomes critical in "Kobol's Last Gleaming." One of the reasons they let the "wounded bird" fly around the Galactica before its final suicide run was to glean information on the Cylon FTL drive.

The Helo Caprica storyline takes even more interesting turns. Sharon claimed that she heard of plans and deployments. "There is a big Cylon base at Delphi. Major hub." The Cylons appear to have more stamina than humans. She doesn't slow down, even when Helo is tired and can't go any further.

Number Six is discovering answers to her famous question, "Are you alive?" when Doral said that Helo was so alive in his anguish at the prospect of losing Sharon. Doral explained that Sharon's passion for Helo is making her more resourceful, and was key in her evading Cylon capture, and that Number Six was bothered by this. Doral's comments made her cry, which indicates that maybe the real jealosy on Number Six's part is that she wishes she were more human than she actually is. Of all the Cylon models, Sharon appears closest to being human.

Billy and Dualla's romance continues to mature. They were last seen as a couple in "Bastille Day." Dualla's crewmates in CIC thought she was special enough to schedule special Viper flyby maneuvers in the observation deck window. Billy was doing undercover intelligence work for Laura on his date.

There is a noticeable edit taken out of the British telecast, when Starbuck first enters the lab. Number Six is bent over the table, dressed in a red negligée, with Baltar behind her. "You're right about one thing, Gaius. There is someting very intriguing about her." The scene is intact in "The Doctor Is Out (Of His Mind)" promotional video at SciFi's Battlestar site.

There is a Viper pilot named Beehive who accompanied Apollo in chasing the raider.

"The funny story about (the first act of 'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down') was that the producers had temped in this piece by Mozart from the 'Marriage of Figaro.' I was the only person that thought it was weird that Mozart would be in the Battlestar Galactica universe, so I asked them to let me try something that sounds like this, and I wrote it in very much the same style." -- Bear McCreary (composer) on 8/3/2005 (source: SyFy Portal)

Deleted Scenes

Dualla denies a rumor to Gaeta (#3 on the SciFi site) -- On CIC, she asks Gaeta, "Why is my sex life so interesting? I mean, 50 people in this room, chances are one of them got laid last night. No, I didn't get laid." Gaeta corrects her, "No, I didn't get laid, sir."

Baltar treats Kara while Six tempts Baltar (#2 on the SciFi site) -- Kara limps into Baltar's lab and sits down while Baltar is putting on rubber gloves. "It's just, uh, just for hygiene really. I don't know where your pilots have been." He has Kara squeeze a ball while she gives him a blood sample. "Squeeze this please." Six teases Baltar over Kara's obvious lack of interest in him. "Tell you what. You manage to get in her pants, I'll join you." Kara lights up a cigar. She asks, "You mind?" "No, not at all." He finishes taking the sample and says, "Done. May I have my ball back please." Number Six taunts him again. "See, it won't be such a bad 61 years after all."

Tyrol, Adama and Tigh study the Raider's behavior (#1 on the SciFi site) --
Tyrol: "Commander, you should really take a look at this. Just before it was destroyed, the raider sent out a high speed data burst and I cannot decode this one either. Well, it looks like it was broadcast toward the Galactica."
Tigh: "That thing hasn't been sending out any distress signals. It's been studying us while we've been studying it."
Adama: "Now it's sharing its findings with someone."
Tigh: "Well, we do know there are Cylon agents in the fleet."
Adama: "Yes, we do."