Ellen Tigh

BSG Character


caption =
bgcolor = #fc0
fgcolor = #000
name = Ellen Tigh
race = Human
gender = Female
callsign =
rank =
colony =
affiliation = Colonial civilian
portrayed = Kate Vernon
first = "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down"
last = "Exodus, Part 2" (Chronological) "Escape Velocity" (Hallucination)

Ellen Tigh is a fictional character from the re-imagined "Battlestar Galactica" series.

Overview

Ellen Tigh is the wife of Colonel Saul Tigh, who believes she has been killed during the Cylon attack of the Colonies while he was on "Galactica". She is first seen in the miniseries when Saul burns her picture. Her infidelity has strained their relationship, though they try to reconcile after their reunion.

Ellen Tigh claims to have been rescued and brought on the last flight off of Picon after she was knocked unconscious when Cylons attacked the airport. In the weeks after the exodus of the refugee fleet, she is on board the "Rising Star", but until a week before her reunion with her husband, the crew do not remember seeing administering medical care to her. Thus, Adama has her blood tested by Baltar, who tells Adama and Roslin that she is human, but in a conversation with Six, he indicates he may have lied.

Ellen enjoys flirting with various men and working to enhance her and Saul's personal position. During the first Quorum of Twelve assembly, she shakes hands with terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek immediately after her husband refuses to. She explains that this is to get their picture in the media. Later, she tells Zarek where to find an imprisoned agent he had sent to kill President Roslin; the agent soon ends up dead. It is suspected that Ellen killed the would-be-assassin when Zarek tells Roslin that he was not responsible for the agent's death. Ellen is promiscuous; according to Adama, she has "slept with half the fleet while Saul was in space."

Ellen also acts as a Lady Macbeth figure to her husband. When Adama was hospitalized after his attempted assassination, it is Ellen who convinces Saul to take control of the fleet and declare martial law. When Saul's brief reign comes to a disaster, Ellen scolds her husband heavily for not having the will to take control. Saul blames Ellen for manipulating him, though she counters by saying that she did what she did for the both of them.

During the beginning of Season 3, in an attempt to gain information for the Human insurgency on New Caprica, as well as trying to secure the release of her husband, Ellen Tigh has several sexual encounters with a Cavil-model Cylon. This model also uses Colonel Tigh as leverage against her to gain information about the insurgency, leading to the Cylon ambush on Lt. Sharon Agathon's marine landing on New Caprica. Her treachery is revealed when a dead Cylon is found with directions to the landing site written in the hand of Samuel Anders, one of the Resistance leaders.

While her husband knows that she has done this out of love for him, he also knows that any betrayal of the Resistance is punishable by death, and Anders warns that other members of the Resistance will kill Ellen themselves if Saul does not. While holding her and telling her he loves her, he gives her a poisoned drink; she dies seconds later.

Colonel Saul Tigh has visions of Model 6 as his own wife in the episode "Escape Velocity" and subsequent episodes in season 4, which gives some speculation if Ellen Tigh is an aged version of Model 6, due to similarities in their sexual manipulative ways, and urge to love.

Trivia

*Ellen Tigh was never a character in the original series.
*The picture burned in the miniseries is not of actress Kate Vernon, but of a woman married to one of the producers. When the scene was replayed in the series, Vernon's picture was inserted digitally.
*In postings made to the Sci Fi Channel's message boards, Vernon has said that Ellen knew her husband poisoned her drink and that she would soon die.Fact|date=November 2007

ee also

*List of Battlestar Galactica (re-imagined series) episodes

References

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