"Battlestar Galactica" Retro Recap: "Six Degrees of Separation"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Truthfully, if I took the time to sit down and list out all of the people and things that I found fascinating in Battlestar Galactica, I'd have enough blogs to last me for years on end, it's that rich of a show and one of my all time favorites. Thankfully, I'll never have the patience to truly break every finite detail down because the big gifts that the show sent our way, are enough to keep my attention, especially when it comes to the characters.

After all this is a show filled with incredible people, ones we can all relate to since they experience fear, pain, anger, joy and love...all the things that make life worth living. But of all the characters the show presented to us over the years, there was one that always stood out as an enigma until the series finale...Doctor Gaius Baltar. He is of course the inadvertent architect of humanity's downfall on the show and what always made him so fascinating was the fact that we could never quite figure out if he was a hero or a villain. But our first real insight into his flawed mind came in the seventh episode of the series, "Six Degrees of Separation".

After all this was the episode where he finally came face to face with a Number Six again, except this one was not quite as loving or attached to him as the Six that roamed around in his head. No this Six had a name, Shelly Godfrey, and as it turns out for Baltar...this Six was nothing but trouble. She comes aboard the ship with an alarming accusation, that Gaius is responsible for the destruction of mankind and she has the evidence in her hot little hand. It of course puts Gaius in an uncomfortable place since it will take a day for the data to prove her claims and instantly he becomes persona non grata aboard the Galactica. His Cylon detection program is suspended and all he can do is wait and see what will happen.

All of this seems to stem from the fact he mocked Imaginary Six's God, prompting her to disappear and despite his pleas for her to return, she most certainly does not. There is only Shelly and the impending doom hovering over him that he will finally be discovered for his crimes against humanity. Of course the evidence showing Baltar's direct hand in the end of the world eventually surfaces and it seems that indeed Baltar is doomed when he is thrown into the brig. But a bit of begging to the "Cylon God" brings back his beloved Imaginary Six and it turns out that the evidence Godfrey provided was a fake, and to top it off she is now missing, meaning Baltar is free to go and he escapes trouble once again.  

While the episode ends with Baltar believing he is now invincible on so many levels, allowing his ego to prevail, what made this episode great was the fact that he was vulnerable for the first time in front of all of us. It became clear after this story that Baltar in many ways...wants to do the right thing and be accepted by everyone in the fleet to exonerate his guilt internally. By becoming a productive member of society...his secret is forgiven. But in addition to his need to be accepted, I truly loved the fact that Baltar believed in something more than himself and his wit for the first time on the show. His prayer to God was truly something new for him and well...it seems as though it paid off. Whether or not he believes in something more now has yet to be seen...but either way, this was a wonderful episode, one that shattered a few weeks of heavier storytelling if only for a moment, because what comes next...may be the finest and darkest story season one had to offer. Until then.

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