Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down

"Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" (credit: Sci-Fi Channel)

This episode is also known under its draft title, "Secrets and Lies". Its official title is "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down".

Overview

Colonel Tigh's world is turned upside down when his wife arrives on the Galactica -- but is she all she professes?

Summary

• Laura Roslin comes aboard the Galactica as Adama receives a report that Baltar’s Cylon detector is operational.
• Unable to shake Conoy’s words to her (Flesh and Bone), she wants Adama to take the test first; he reluctantly agrees.
• When a lone Cylon Raider shows up, Lee Adama is ordered to intercept, and Tigh is stunned to learn Adama is off-ship.
• The Raider is crippled, and a Raptor is dispatched to gather intel on it, particularly how its FTL drive operates.
• Adama returns to the Galactica on a Raptor with a further shock for Tigh: his wife, Ellen.
• Roslin calls Baltar to check on the progress of Adama’s Cylon test – only to find Adama has cancelled so that a woman called “Ellen” can be tested. Roslin orders Baltar to restart Adama’s test immediately.
• Roslin summons Tigh to Colonial One and reveals her suspicions regarding Adama, and challenging a defensive Tigh over Adama’s behavior in leaving the Galactica unannounced.
• Tigh takes the wind out of Roslin’s sails when he states Adama was off-ship so he could collect Tigh’s missing wife.
• After Tigh has left her office, Roslin calls Baltar and orders him to stop Adama’s test and resume Ellen’s.
• Later, at a dinner in Adama’s quarters, Ellen behaves with a mixture of her old self – trying to play footsie with Lee Adama under the table, and trying to flirt with him over the table – and strange curiosity concerning Earth.
• Adama deflects her probing by asking how it could be that she got aboard a ship, the Rising Star, without anyone having any knowledge or her or of treating her during her alleged 3 weeks of being unconscious.
• Ellen simply shrugs off the questions in her apparently drunken state and breaks up the party with her “drunken” playing.
• As she and her husband return to their quarters, they encounter Baltar, with whome she openly flirts, both annoying Tigh and raising Six’s curiosity.
• After Baltar has departed, Ellen deflects her husband’s anger at her behaviour by claiming Adama wants her, then dragging Tigh after Baltar.
• In Baltar’s lab, a row is brewing over the various tests that should have been carried out; things being even more complicated when Tigh and his wife arrive, and the disagreements and suspicions become a three-way argument, which is broken up when Adama, Lee and Tigh are summoned to CIC.
• The Cylon Raider has stopped behaving oddly, and is on an collision course for Galactica. Alert Fighters are dispatched at Tigh’s order, and the Raider is destroyed.
• Later, back in Baltar’s lab, Ellen’s test results come through and are apparently green. Baltar, however simply states to Six that having everything turn up green makes life a lot easier.

On Caprica:

• Helo and Valerii are trying to avoid the Cylons by running through the storm drains under a city.
• Valerii has a plan -- she claims to have overheard the Cylons discussing a huge base at Delphi, she believes they can steal a ship from there and get off the planet.
• Doral and Six are definitely affected by the fact that even though Valerii has run off, she is experiencing emotions they have never had -- as is Helo.

Summary from scifi.com

President Roslin's fears that Commander Adama is a Cylon are stoked when she learns he's making secret wireless calls to other ships. Then, to make things worse, a single Cylon raider appears near the Galactica and begins acting strangely after being damaged in battle.

When Adama returns to the ship with Tigh's wife, Ellen, an earthy temptress and irrepressible flirt who claims to have been in a coma since their civilization was destroyed, Roslin's suspicions increase. She orders Baltar to screen both Ellen and Adama with his newly completed Cylon-detector.

Meanwhile, Col. Tigh and the rest of the crew watch warily and gather data as the wounded Cylon raider jumps in and out of space.

On Caprica, the Cylon overseers fear that the Cylon Sharon is developing a strange feeling toward Helo — love. --This section ©2005, SCI FI. All rights reserved.

Questions

• Is Ellen Tigh an Humano-Cylon?
• What is Baltar hoping to gain from keeping the test results secret?

Analysis

An episode that cleverly mixes intrigue and humour to conjure a rich tapestry that is somewhat different from earlier episodes – but no less entertaining in the questions it raises.

The intrigue is initially driven out of Roslin’s paranoia towards Adama, but quickly re-centres on Ellen Tigh.

Roslin’s paranoia is fed by Leoben Conoy’s last words to her in “Flesh and Bone” – she is genuinely concerned that Adama is a Cylon, and his pre-occupation with Ellen Tigh doesn’t help calm her fears. But even when the mystery surrounding Adama’s actions is resolved, the intrigue doesn’t let up: just who or what is Ellen Tigh? Human or Cylon?

The weight of evidence for her being human is almost overwhelming. She is vindictive, manipulative, calculating (witness her ability to play footsie under the table with Lee Adama after hearing about his brother's death), but human nonetheless. She has clearly been a destructive force in Tigh's life - and most likely the reason for his drinking problem, and despite her claims to want a reconcilliation, it is clear that little has really changed within her: she is man-hungry, and delights in sowing the seeds of mischief.

BUT - and there is always a "but" in BSG, the writers throw in just enough to create doubt:

• Why is it that - as Adama points out - no-one can remember her either being aboard the Rising Star or being treated for her injuries until the last few days?

• Why can’t the Captain of the Rising Star remember how she came to be aboard his ship. Her "rescue" from Picon sounds so dramatic, surely someone would remember her coming aboard the ship, whether she was conscious or not?
• And why is her interest at the dinner table focused singularly on the subject of Earth? Is it really the "talk of the fleet", or is there something behind her persistence?
• She operates in a manner strikingly similar to a cross between Six and Conoy. Like Six, she is not afraid to use her sexual mores against men; like Conoy, her words seem laced with half-truths and are frequently manipulative and border on the insidious
• Finally, there is her comment on meeting Baltar, “Oh, I know exactly who you are.” On the one hand, it could simply be a result of her recognising Baltar as a leading scientist and (no doubt) playboy, and her predatory nature kicking-in. On the other hand, knowing exactly who someone “is” usually means a person is not fooled: they know intimate secrets about the individual they are meeting, and so the comment is usually taken as a thinly-veiled threat. Does Ellen Tigh know more than she is letting on?

Even the denouement concerning Ellen Tigh’s heritage is open to interpretation: Baltar proclaims her to be human, but then admits to Six he’s decided all results are going to be “green”; as he puts it: “no muss, no fuss”. He won’t even reveal the true result of the test to Six.

Six’s reaction to Ellen Tigh is equally interesting: “Something here, isn’t there?” she states after Ellen’s unconventional introduction to Baltar – and it is doubtful she is referring to the flirting that takes place; rather, her words are a warning, as is her follow-up comment: “You should be watching her.” Six has sensed something in Ellen Tigh, and it is something she doesn’t trust.

So, could it be that Ellen Tigh is a Cylon? Certainly, it has been established that there are 12 models of Cylon, so again, this leaves room for her to be one. But – again – if she were, that would raise an interesting precedent: it would mean that that Cylons can replicate living (or once-living) humans. Were this to be the case, it would significantly alter the balance of things. For this reason, more than any other, it is unlikely Ellen Tigh is anything more than a human woman with an agenda of her own.

Meanwhile, on Caprica things also continue to take an interesting turn. Now fugitives together, Helo and Valerii are finally making an attempt to get off the planet, and Valerii is reaching the point where if she doesn’t admit her status to Helo, he’s going to guess. Above them – literally - we are given further insight into Cylon motivations for what was occurring around Helo, and once again it all seems to boil down to the emotions generated by love: loyalty, need, protectiveness, desire, generosity, anguish, the motivations it creates – all of which appear to be beyond Cylon understanding, even though they are capable of other, baser emotional responses, as witnessed by Six’s tears and Doral’s hurt envy. And there is still that small matter of procreation hanging in the air...

Perhaps the one weak link in the episode is the arrival of the Cylon Raider. Despite all the material the production crew have to play with in this episode, this one thread sticks out from the rest and almost screams “Padding!” at the top of its voice.

As an attempt to heighten concern about Adama’s real motivations (the Raider turning up while he is out and about in a Raptor), it is nothing short of clumsy. As a means of confirming the fact that the Colonials don’t have FTL systems of a comparable size to those contained in the captured Raider, and are thus keen to find out all they can about a “working” version, it is short on drama. Was the Raider really crippled? Was it playing a game with the Colonials - if so, to what purpose? What caused Starbuck to come to this conclusion? None of the answers to these questions are even hinted at - much less explained, leaving the entire Raider situation something that has a big “So what?” hanging over it.

But this aside, “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” serves up another interesting blend of character-driven drama that demonstrates that Battlestar Galactica is also capable of some fine humour.

Questions

• The test themselves apparently take 11 hours to generate results (although Boomer’s result in “Flesh and Bone” was obtained in far less time than this – "a couple of minutes", according to Baltar, and about 60 seconds of screen-time.)
  • Baltar claims in Resistance that he allowed Boomer to believe she was Human "for [his] own purposes". Does he have the ability to determine other Cylon infiltrators in a much shorter timeframe than he chooses to admit in this episode? Perhaps he was just going through the math in his head - but then why the half-serious jokes about suicide as he contemplates the task?

Notes

• The script was originally called "Secrets and Lies". However, "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" is the official title for the episode, according to Ronald D. Moore.
• It is 3 days since the events of "Flesh and Bone".
• There are now 47,905 survivors in the fleet, a loss of 49 since "Flesh and Bone". Compared to other casualty figures in the first season, this is unusually high for a three-day period.
  • Are Boomer (tested last episode) and Baltar himself included in this figure?
• Billy’s relationship with Dualla is picking up, despite his attempts to pump her for information
• Tigh’s alcoholism was more than likely kicked-off by his wife – either directly or through her infidelity – or possibly both.
• Baltar apparently has no intention of being honest about the results of his Cylon tests.
• The Galactica has a forward observation lounge that has become a much sought-after trysting-place, with individuals and couples rotated through it at regular intervals.
• The Cylons have established a major base at Delphi, another major city on Caprica.

Noteworthy Dialogue

• As Commamder Adama and Laura Roslin talk in the CIC:

Commander Adama: Madam President, we are the proud owners of the universe's first bonafide Cylon detector.

Laura Roslin: Well, that is great news. So...when do we begin?

Commander Adama: Doctor Baltar would like to start widespread testing as soon as possible, but there are some serious limitations, becayse he can only do one person at a time, and verification takes hours.

Laura Roslin: So, who's going to go first?

Commander Adama: (thinking for a second) The test...right. I think people in sensitive positions should go first.

Laura Roslin: I completely agree. How about you?

Commander Adama: Excuse me?

Laura Roslin: If you're a Cylon, I'd like to know.

Commander Adama: If I'm a Cylon, you're really screwed.

(Adama and Roslin both start laughing)

Laura Roslin: Seriously, I do think you should go first. Show everyone in the fleet that they can trust the people at the top.

Commander Adama: Well then, maybe YOU should go first. (silence) Alright...I'll go first.

• As Commander Adama, Colonel Tigh, Ellen Tigh, Apollo, and Laura Roslin are eating dinner:

Ellen Tigh: So Bill, now the question on everyone's mind-and, I do mean everyone-is "Where's Earth?" and "When are we going to get there?".

Commander Adama: Yeah...that's classified information.

Ellen Tigh: Oh, there's that word again!

Colonel Tigh: Ellen, leave the man alone.

Ellen Tigh: Come on! If there aren't privilages to being an XO's wife, then what's the point? I mean, Bill, we're all family here, so come on!

Laura Roslin: The need for secrecy is paramount, Ellen. Oh, I'm sorry. Perhaps you don't know that the Cylons look like us now.

Ellen Tigh: Oh...that. Yes. Yes, I knew that.

Laura Roslin: It's recent news. Most people just found out a few days ago.

Ellen Tigh: (thinking) A thing like that would travel fast.

Commander Adama: Any one of us could be a Cylon.

(the entire table goes silent)

Ellen Tigh: BOO!

(everyone jumps in their seat, but Ellen and Saul start laughing)

Official Statements

• "'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' was originally called 'Secrets and Lies', or 'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' by Jeff (Vlaming). And when I saw those titles on the script, I knew we had to go with 'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down'. It was too good. Too good a title to let lie on the cutting room floor." -- Ronald D. Moore podcast
• "'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' began life as a very different episode than it ultimately came out to be. It was originally going to be a riff on 'Crimson Tide'." -- Ronald D. Moore podcast
• "It did feel right that, perhaps, there was one place; that perhaps there was one area of the ship, which accepted a window or a port to look out and that it would be a fairly confined space for the crew on these very long, deep space missions that probably lasted months, if not years. And that there might be a place where they can go to and just stargaze. And in this situation, it seemed like there would be a lot of people lining up to try and look out at the stars, you know, a break from the monotony of staring at metal walls." -- Ronald D. Moore podcast, talking about the observation area of the Galactica
• "The long and the short of it was that we had just come out of a very heavy, very dark, very disturbing episode. And the very next episode was supposed to be 'Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down' which was all about a very disturbing, very dark, very (sort of) unhappy episode where our two -- two of our lead characters started pointing guns at one another. So there came a point when I just decided, well, lets just punt. Lets not do the dark and brooding episode. Lets try a different tone. Lets see if the show can withstand something lighter. Lets try something that's closer to a comedy, or as close to a comedy as Galactica can withstand." -- Ronald D. Moore podcast

Statistics

Guest Stars

• Kate Vernon as Ellen Tigh
• Matthew Bennett as Aaron Doral
• Alex Green as Deckhand

Writing & Direction

• Written by Jeff Vlaming
• Directed by Edward James Olmos

Production Notes

• Series 1 (2004 / 2005)
• Production Number: 1.09
• Airdate Order: 9 (of 13)

First Run Air Dates & Releases

• UK Airdate: 13 December 2004 (Sky One)
• US Airdate: 4 march 2005 (Sci-Fi Channel)
• DVD Release: 28 March 2005 (UK)

External Links

"Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" at scifi.com

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Re-imagined Series definition: Colonial equivalent of radio

Re-imagined Series definition: Battlestar Group ^{(TRS: "Water")}. It also doubles as an acronym for the television series itself.

Re-imagined Series definition: technology enabling travel across distances faster than the speed of light would permit, see: FTL

Re-imagined Series definition: nerve center or "bridge" of a battlestar, see: Combat Information Center

Re-imagined Series definition: Executive Officer, e.g. Saul Tigh