Characters appearing or mentioned in this episode

Lt. Hoshi

Starbuck

Didja Notice?

Dr. Cottle congratulates President Roslin on surviving her first Doloxan treatment. He may be sarcastically referring back to "Act of Contrition", where Roslin refused to take Doloxan for her cancer, preferring to try Chamalla extract. Doloxan is a fictitious drug.

   At 13:14 on the Blu-ray, as Colonel Tigh is telling Admiral Adama about the music he's hearing throughout the ship, he says, "I know, I know. I can't quite understand it myself, but...there's too much confusion." By the end of the episode, the song is revealed to be "All Along the Watchtower", a song written on our Earth by Bob Dylan in 1967 and most popularly known for the Jimi Hendrix 1968 version. Tigh's line of "there's too much confusion" is a line from the song. When Adama leaves the room, Tigh mumbles, "There must be some kind of way out of here," another line from Hendrix's slightly modified version of the song.

    The version of the song heard here is a composition by the series' composer Bear McCreary and sung by his brother Brendan McCreary. Listen to it at YouTube.

In his testimony on the stand for Baltar, Apollo reminds the court that many people and many actions that could be considered traitorous were forgiven by President Roslin and the fleet: hundreds of collaborators with the Cylons on New Caprica ("Collaborators"), suicide bombers ordered by Colonel Tigh against the Cylons on New Caprica which killed dozens of people ("Occupation"), Helo and Tyrol murdering an officer (Lt. Thorne) on Pegasus ("Pegasus" Part 2), Admiral Adama instituting a military coup d'état against President Roslin ("Kobol's Last Gleaming" Part 2), and Apollo himself shooting down a civilian passenger ship, the Olympic Carrier, killing over a thousand people ("33"), committing an act of mutiny ("Kobol's Last Gleaming" Part 2), abandoning the colony on New Caprica while in command of the Pegasus ("Lay Down Your Burdens" Part 2), and trying to convince the admiral not to return for the colonists, fearing the endeavor was doomed to defeat ("Exodus" Part 1).

After the Baltar trial, Apollo asks Romo, "When you put me on the stand, did you know what was gonna happen?" and Romo responds, "I knew you were an honest man, Mr. Adama, much unlike your grandfather." It seems a bit odd that Romo should say that Joseph Adama was not an honest man. Maybe early in Joseph's career, when he was a hired attorney paid to defend criminals...but later in his life he was a public defender and law professor, which is when Romo knew him. Of course, it may have been Romo's way of paying Apollo a compliment, considering Romo is not terribly honest either.

Near the end of the episode, four of the Final Five Cylons are revealed: Colonel Tigh, Chief Tyrol, Sam Anders, and Tory Foster. The fifth of the Final Five Cylons will be revealed in "Sometimes a Great Notion".

With Tyrol now revealed as a Cylon, it may explain why he was drawn to the butte on the algae planet where he discovered the Temple of Five.

When Starbuck flies up to Apollo in her Viper, notice that it is shiny and clean, unlike the one she normally piloted and was piloting at time of her death in "Maelstrom". Notice also that her nameplate is missing below the cockpit here, but is suddenly present in the season four premiere "He That Believeth In Me". The Viper's tail number is also missing in both episodes.

The shot of the planet Earth at the very end of the episode shows the North American continent from orbit. What is now the Florida peninsula is clearly seen.

Lyrics of "All Along the Watchtower"

“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

An analysis of the song at reasontorock.com

Unanswered Questions

The human-Cylon hybrid child Hera is considered an important bridge between humans and Cylons. Will the same be true of Nicholas Tyrol now that we know he is also a human-Cylon hybrid with the revelation of his father, Chief Tyrol, as one of the Final Five Cylons? The question is not answered until "A Disquiet Follows My Soul", where it is revealed that Tyrol is not the biological father of Nicholas, but Brendan "Hot Dog" Costanza, so the boy is entirely human.