Battlestar Galactica "Fragged" Written by Dawn Prestwich & Nicole Yorkin Directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan Original air date: July 29, 2005

The Quorum of Twelve demands to see the jailed President Roslin; Apollo leads a search-and-rescue mission to retrieve the stranded raptor crew on Kobol.

Read the synopsis of this episode at the Battlestar Wiki Clone site

Didja Know?

The title of this episode comes from the U.S. military slang term "frag", a word meaning to intentionally kill one's superior officer to stop their incompetence or recklessness. In this episode, Baltar shoots Crashdown, who has not used particularly good judgment since he has found himself in command of the crashed Raptor crew on Kobol since "Scattered".

The opening titles show the fleet at 47,862 survivors, down twelve from "Valley of Darkness", presumably due to the deaths of Galactica crewmembers during the attack by the Cylon boarding party in that episode.

Characters appearing or mentioned in this episode

Crashdown (dies in this episode)
Cally
Diana Seelix
Chief Tyrol
Baltar
Socinus (mentioned only, deceased)
Tarn (mentioned only, deceased)
Head Six
Dr. Cottle
Commander Adama
Paramedic Layne Ishay
Paramedic Howard Kim
Colonel Tigh
Billy Keikeya
Lt. Gaeta
Apollo
Petty Officer Dualla
Lt. Simes (mentioned only)
Boomer (mentioned only)
Racetrack
President Roslin
Corporal Venner
Tom Zarek
Ellen Tigh
Sarah Porter (Quorum member)
Marshall Bagott (Quorum member)
Ranger

Didja Notice?

As Dr. Cottle prepares for surgery on Adama, Colonel Tigh asks him if he's going to make it. Cottle responds snappishly, "How should I know? I'm not a psychic." This may be a bit of a nod to Star Trek, where Dr. McCoy was frequently known to snap, "I'm a doctor, not a...(fill in the blank)."

Still considering Apollo to be under arrest, Tigh says that Simes is the senior pilot now. The first two senior pilots are normally Apollo and Starbuck.

This episode is the first mention by name of the Zephyr, the ringed ship seen prominently in the fleet in almost every episode.

The members of the Quorum of Twelve are said to be shuttling over to Galactica from the Zephyr. But why from the Zephyr? It seemed that the Cloud Nine was the Quorum's base in "Colonial Day".

Cally reveals that she joined the military so she could pay for dental school.

This episode reveals that the Gemonese tend to believe that the Sacred Scrolls are literal truth more than the members of other Colonies.

At 25:51 on the Blu-ray, a boat can be seen on the lake outside of Baltar's windows in his hallucination home.

When Ellen Tigh pays a visit to Roslin in the brig, Roslin starts to hear a painful ringing in her head. The ringing stops once Ellen leaves. Was Roslin somehow sensing that Ellen was a Cylon (revealed much later in "No Exit")?

Crashdown seems to be following military protocol similar to the five paragraph order of U.S. military small unit tactics.

Head Six claims to Baltar that God has turned his back on Kobol.

At 31:56 on the Blu-ray, notice that Tyrol manages to yank the three dog tags off of Crashdown's neck without moving the dead body in any way and without undoing the clasps!

Tyrol uses a slightly modified Cobray 37mm grenade launcher to take out the Cylon DRADIS dish.

The scene of Tyrol almost suicidally firing his handgun at the five Cylon centurions before Apollo's Raptor blows them up is very similar to a scene near the end of the 1998 film Saving Private Ryan. This episode's director, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, was first assistant director on that film.

As the crowd of Quorum members walks through the corridor to visit President Roslin in the brig, notice that a shiny set piece in the corridor starts to fall forward from the air rush of their passing and Richard Hatch (Zarek) inconspicuously pushes it back down as he goes by at 36:38 to keep it from ruining the shot.

Colonel Tigh mockingly remarks that President Roslin believes that the ancient relic the Arrow of Apollo will open the Tomb of Artemis. Of course, it is actually the Tomb of Athena. Artemis was one of the deities of Ancient Greece; Athena was one of her sisters.

At 39:42 on the Blu-ray, the Raptor seen as part of the rescue operation on Kobol has the pilot's name and callsign painted under the cockpit canopy at Lt. T. Rogers, "Ranger".