Battlestar Galactica: Razor, the Pegasus TV film explained

Battlestar Galactica: Razor is a TV film first shown on 24 November 2007 that tells the story of the battlestar Pegasus. It follows Kendra Shaw, a young officer who served under Admiral Helena Cain after the Fall and later became Lee Adama's executive officer. Set during season 2 but released between seasons 3 and 4, it fills in what Pegasus did before it met Galactica and plants a prophecy about Kara Thrace that the final season pays off. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Plot#

Lee's Pegasus. After the death of Commander Barry Garner, Lee was given command of Pegasus. Shaw became his executive officer. She was hard, unpopular and fiercely loyal to Cain's memory. Her first actions in the job showed she still thought the way Cain did, putting the ship ahead of the pilots in the air. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "The Captain's Hand")

Shaw and Cain. The film went back to Shaw's arrival on Pegasus, a new officer posted to a ship in refit at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards. Soon after, the Cylons attacked, the same strike that opens the 2003 miniseries. Cain got the ship clear with a blind jump and told her crew they would fight back. Shaw found the backdoor in the navigation software that had crippled the rest of the fleet. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Cain took Pegasus into what she thought was a lightly held Cylon position. It was a trap. When her XO, Colonel Jurgen Belzen, refused to send more pilots into it, she shot him in the CIC. A Cylon boarding party got aboard because Gina Inviere, a Number Six working as a systems contractor and Cain's lover, had used Shaw's access codes to bring down the defences. Shaw spotted another Six with the boarders, killed it and exposed Gina. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Pegasus then found a group of civilian ships that had escaped the Colonies. Cain had them stripped of parts and useful people, with families threatened to force them aboard. When the civilians resisted, Shaw shot one of them, and the Marines under Colonel Jack Fisk opened fire on the crowd. The ships, the Scylla among them, were left behind with the people still aboard. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

The Guardians. In the present, a Raptor and its crew went missing, and Pegasus found itself up against Cylon War era Raiders and an old-style basestar. Admiral William Adama knew these machines. Galactica's Cylon prisoner, Sharon Agathon, told them more: the Guardians were old model Centurions that had escaped being scrapped and guarded the first Hybrid the Cylons ever built. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Pegasus's Marines boarded, with Shaw and Kara among them, and found the missing crew in a lab, mutilated. The detonator for the nuke they had brought was damaged. Shaw took the warhead from Kara at gunpoint, sent the others back and stayed to set it off by hand. Before she did, she found the Hybrid, who warned her that Kara would lead the human race to its end and must not be followed. Shaw tried to radio the warning to Pegasus, but Cylon jamming cut her off. The basestar was destroyed with Shaw aboard. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Young Adama. Running through the film was a flashback to the last day of the Cylon War. A young Viper pilot, Adama landed on a Cylon base and found humans being used in experiments, the work that produced the Hybrid. The extended cut adds a scene of Cain as a child on Tauron, hiding from Centurions and leaving her sister behind. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

What it reveals#

Razor answers the question "Pegasus" left open: how a Colonial crew came to treat prisoners and civilians the way Cain's did. The answer is a series of choices that each seemed justified at the time, with Shaw shaped by every one. The title is Cain's idea of what a survivor has to be, and the film asks whether Shaw can stop being one. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus")

It also explains Gina. Her relationship with Cain and her betrayal are why Cain was so cold to the Cylon in her brig, and why Gina later killed her. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "Resurrection Ship, Part II")

The Hybrid's words about Kara are the most important thing in the film for the rest of the series. She is called the herald of the apocalypse who will lead humanity to its end. At the time it sounds like a threat. By the finale, the "end" turns out to be the end of the fleet's search, on a new world. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II")

Razor also gives the Cylons a history. The Hybrid shows the machines were already trying to merge with people during the first war, decades before the human-looking models existed. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Characters#

• Kendra Shaw: the lead. Cain's protégé and Lee's XO, who dies destroying the Guardian basestar.
• Helena Cain: seen in flashback, turning Pegasus into a ship that fights at any cost.
• Lee Adama: new commander of Pegasus, learning to trust Shaw.
• Kara Thrace: on the boarding party, and the subject of the Hybrid's prophecy.
• William Adama: leads the rescue as an admiral, and appears as a young pilot in the Cylon War flashback.
• Gina Inviere: Cain's lover and the Cylon agent aboard Pegasus.
• Jack Fisk and Jurgen Belzen: Cain's officers; Belzen refuses her and is shot.
• Sharon Agathon: the Cylon prisoner who explains the Guardians.
• Saul Tigh: Adama's XO during the present-day mission.

(Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

Where it fits#

Razor's present-day story sits between "The Captain's Hand", where Lee takes command of Pegasus, and "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I", the run-up to the season 2 finale. Its flashbacks go back to the Fall and to the end of the first Cylon War, so it also shows up near the start of the timeline. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "The Captain's Hand"; Battlestar Galactica, "Lay Down Your Burdens, Part I")

It first aired on 24 November 2007, between the season 3 finale and the start of season 4, and that's the best place to watch it. By then Kara has died and come back, so the Hybrid's warning about her means far more than it would mid season 2. The episode guide lists it there too. Some lists count Razor as two episodes of season 4, which is one reason episode totals vary. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor; Battlestar Galactica, "Maelstrom")

The film was promoted with seven short online "Razor Flashbacks" following young Adama in the war. They're extra, not required. The extended cut on DVD is the fuller version of the film, with about 20 more minutes, mostly in the flashbacks. (Battlestar Galactica: Razor)

For what Pegasus does next, go to "Pegasus", which shows the ship's arrival from Galactica's side, and to the series finale, "Daybreak", where the Hybrid's prophecy is resolved. (Battlestar Galactica, "Pegasus"; Battlestar Galactica, "Daybreak, Part II")