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Battlestar Galactica
"Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down"
TV episode
Written by Jeff Vlaming
Directed by Edward James Olmos
Original air date: March 4, 2004
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Colonel Tigh’s ex-wife is found alive
in the fleet; President Roslin clandestinely investigates
Adama’s actions, fearing he might be a Cylon.
Read the story summary at the Battlestar
Wiki Clone
Notes from the BSG
chronology
This episode opens 3 days after the events of
"Flesh and Bone", 28 days
after the annihilation of the Twelve Colonies.
Didja Know?
The title of this episode is a play on that of the 1989 Spanish
dark comedy, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, about a
psychiatric patient who kidnaps an actress in the hope that
she'll fall in love with him.
This episode was directed by Edward James Olmos, the actor who
plays Commander Adama.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this story
Commander Adama
President Roslin
Lt. Gaeta
Billy Keikeya
Dee
Baltar
Head Six
Starbuck
Colonel Tigh
Ellen Tigh
Apollo
Beehive
Helo
Caprica-Valerii
Chief Tyrol
Hot Dog
Didja Notice?
During the "Previously on Battlestar Galactica"
sequence, the shot of Colonel Tigh burning a hole through his
wife's photograph is based on a scene from
"Serve and Protect",
but the photograph has been replaced with the current actress
playing Ellen Tigh, Kate Vernon. The original photograph
featured
Jennifer Birchfield-Eick, the wife of series co-producer Michael
Eick.
The Galactica has an observation deck with a view out
into space that is in high demand by crewmembers and civilians
of the fleet as a means of relaxation. An observation deck with
much more immense windows into space is later seen in
"Bringing Back the Dead".
The opera music Baltar listens to in his lab is a piece written
by series composer Bear McCreary called "Battlestar Operatica".
The lyrics, sung in Italian, are directly relatable to Baltar,
as seen at the
Battlestar Wiki
Clone site.
Lamenting the immense and time-consuming task ahead of him in
testing everyone in the fleet with the Cylon detector, Baltar
states there are 47,905 survivors in the fleet. This is down 49
people since
"Flesh and Bone" just a
few days prior. It's possible Baltar's numbers are off or a
recount of the population corrected some errors.
Baltar's calculation of 21,956 days to test every person in the
fleet at 11 hours each is accurate, given a 24-hour day.
When the lone Cylon Raider jumps into the fleet's presence,
Apollo and Beehive are on patrol and go after it. This is the
only appearance of Beehive.
With Commander Adama away, when Tigh leaves CIC, he gives Lt.
Gaeta command.
At 16:53 on the Blu-ray, a Cylon Heavy Raider flies over the
surface of Caprica in search of Helo and
Caprica-Valerii. This is the first appearance of a Heavy Raider
in a TV episode, but others appeared in the comics, most
recently in "The Red Line".
Helo wonders why the Cylons are suddenly sending such a large force
against him and
Sharon (Caprica-Valerii). It's likely this is because
Caprica-Valerii has gone rogue on them due to her love for Helo,
but to cover up the fact that she's a Cylon, she tells him that
they're after her because she overheard their plans for using
the Caprican city of Delphi as a base of operations while she
was their prisoner; it's kind of a flimsy excuse, but Helo
seems to buy it. Delphi was previously mentioned as the site of
the Delphi Convalescent Institute in the Caprica
episode
"The Imperfections of Memory".
Ellen remarks to Roslin that some people wonder "if a
kindergarten teacher is really the right person to be
president". This implies the Colonies had a kindergarten grade
of schooling for children. Kindergarten
translates from German as "child garden". Roslin was a
schoolteacher before becoming the Secretary of Education and,
after the annihilation of the Twelve Colonies, the President;
it's never been stated what grade level she taught.
Baltar decides that all the blood tests in the Cylon detector
are going to come up human, because he doesn't want to spend all
the time running test after test, "no muss, no fuss". Apparently
he's so selfish, he doesn't even give a thought that the ones
who are Cylons may harm the fleet! Interestingly though, he now
knows that the first two people he tested, Boomer (in
"Flesh and Bone") and
Ellen here, are both Cylons (Ellen is not revealed to us as a Cylon
until Season Four in "Sometimes a Great Notion").
Memorable Dialog