Season 1, Episode 07:
Six Degrees of Separation
As Baltar sits in his office, he envisions himself with HeadSix, and mocks her belief in God. The conversation escalates to a point where Baltar yells at her, and she promises there will be consequences before disappearing completely. Soon afterwards, Baltar is called to the CIC.
When he arrives, Baltar sees Bill, Gaeta and what appears to be HeadSix, only to realize that she isn't a hallucination, but another copy of Six named Shelly Godfrey. Bill explains that Shelly has made claims that Baltar planted a bomb in the Colonial Defense Mainframe on Caprica, which led to the fall of the Twelve Colonies, and he strenuously denies the accusations.
Godfrey provides the Galactica crew with a grainy image that will take a day to process, and Bill subsequently stops Baltar's work and confines him to Galactica until the image is fully processed. Elsewhere, Roslin sufffers a bout of fatigue, brought on by overdosing on Chamalla extract, and Billy sends out a cover story that she has the flu.
Later that day, Baltar anxiously follows Gaeta around to find out news about the progress on the photo, but Gaeta doesn't have any answers. Meanwhile, Bill meets with Shelly and tries to ask her some questions, only to be suspicious when she tries flirting with him. After their meeting, he orders the crew to keep tabs on her whereabouts.
On Galactica's hangar deck, Boomer comes to see the captured Cylon Raider, and after awkwardly acknowledging Tyrol, begins to stroke the Raider as she talks about how it should be treated like an animal. Tyrol is visibly disturbed by her actions. After she leaves, Lee and Kara come down and try to help Tyrol activate the Raider. Kara climbs inside of it despite her leg injury, and it activates after she commands it to "giddy up".
Meanwhile, on Caprica, Helo and Sharon camp out after leaving the city. As they talk, Helo confesses that he loves her and doesn't want to see her hurt. Smiling to herself, Sharon embraces him, and they make love during the night while her spine glows.
The next day, Baltar learns that Bill will dismantle his Cylon detector if it's proven that the photograph is real. Horrified by this realization, Baltar breaks into his lab by using a fire alarm as a distraction, and attempts to destroy the evidence - only to be stopped by Bill and the crew and subsequently placed in the brig.
Later, Roslin visits Baltar and acts callous towards him, saying that she always knew he was a traitor. Baltar is angered and hurt by her words, but realizes that in order to save himself, he has to submit himself to God's will as HeadSix told him to. He begins praying, only to be comforted by HeadSix, who tells him everything is all right.
Suddenly, Baltar is interrupted by Gaeta walking in, and freaks out thinking the photograph is real. Gaeta tells him to calm down, then states that the photograph was proven to be fake. As he is released from the brig, Bill discovers that Shelly has apparently vanished from the ship.
Roslin holds a press conference exonerating Baltar, and as Baltar stands beside her, HeadSix tells him that he has undergone a "trial by fire", and is thus invincible…
Tropes:
- Angel Unaware: Head-Six is implied (or have been compelled by a greater entity) to have orchestrated the entire series of events that take place, including Godfrey's appearance and Baltar's acceptance of God's will.
- Beta Couple: Helo and Sharon's courtship occurs much quicker compared to Lee and Kara's Will They or Won't They? conversations.
- Clear My Name: Baltar, as he spends the entire episode trying to exonerate himself.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The glowing Cylon spine effect from the Miniseries makes another appearance when Sharon and Helo have sex, and is then never seen again (although there are few if any scenes after this with any focus on the spine of a Cylon during sex).
- False Crucible: Baltar is put through the wringer using falsified evidence, ostensibly so that the Cylons can improve his standing throughout the Fleet.
- Fire Alarm Distraction: Baltar sets off a fire alarm to act as a distraction while he breaks into the lab where Gaeta has been working to destroy valuable evidence.
- Framing the Guilty Party: Shelly Godfrey tries to implicate Baltar for treason using manufactured video evidence of him using an explosive on the Colonial defense mainframe. No such thing happened, although in reality he is responsible for the disabling of the defense mainframe, less directly (by giving access to Caprica-Six, who then exploited its vulnerabilities with a computer virus; he didn't know she was a Cylon agent rather than a corporate spy, but it was still illegal).
- A Friend in Need: Gaeta is the only one to support Baltar when everyone else believes him to be a traitor. As a result, they become good friends.
- Not Helping Your Case: Baltar tries to erase the evidence, which leads to him being locked up in the brig and Roslin telling him that she "always knew" he was a traitor.
- Reverse Psychology Backfire: Zigzagged. Begins as a straight example when Colonel Tigh gently tells Thrace to take her time healing up, to which Thrace asks whether he really thinks she'll fall for it. Tigh then averts this trope with his punch-line: every day Thrace is sulking in bed is another day his low opinion of her is confirmed. This last sting works.
- Romance Ensues: When Helo and Sharon are alone in the woods, though done deliberately by Sharon in order to keep the façade running against Helo.
- Trickster Mentor: HeadSix, who screws with Baltar by disappearing when he yells at her, and only appears when he admits his faith in God.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Shelly disappears from Galactica at the end of the episode, with no explanation where she has gone and no one commenting afterwards where her whereabouts are. The movie The Plan reveals that she lost her security tail with the help of another Six and Cavil ejected her from Galactica's airlock.
- Working with the Ex: Boomer and Tyrol meet briefly to discuss the properties of the Cylon Raider.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Baltar, while trying to talk his way out of the accusations.
