Sometimes, a TV show backs itself into a story corner and isn’t sure how to get out. Before the age of heavy serialization, this was no real problem. A new story could be booted up the very next week. But as serialization increasingly became the order of the day, it got harder and harder to ignore that sometimes, shows would get mired in untenable status quos. Enter the time jump, whose use was popularized by the 2006 episode “Lay Down Your Burdens.” Unlike a time jump that occurs between seasons (favored by series like and ), the on-screen time jump takes a series from one chronology and hops over a few months or years to another one. It’s not a flash-forward or chronological jumble. It boldly leaps ahead and largely stays where it lands. In “Lay Down Your Burdens,” this means the new president, Gaius Baltar, lays down his head after having given the order to settle on promising planet New Caprica, then lifts it up one year later, when things are steadily going to shit—and the Cylons are about to invade. Worst of all, though? Commander Adama grew a mustache.
