In my opinion this was the best of all the Battlestar episodes. It is also a remake into the Galactica mythos of two of the more popular movies that preceeded it in the 1970s. Obviously Commander Caine was modeled after World War II General Patton as portrayed in the Academy award winning movie by George C. Scott a few years earlier. In addition the battle sequences loosely reflect the real battles of Coral Sea and Midway as portrayed in the movie Midway that also came out a few years earlier. The Galactica having the role of the Lexington and the Pegasus, the role of the Hornet. The suicidal attack of the Pegasus at the end was a good way to keep us wondering for the future while at the same time saving the producers the cost of the actors from the Pegasus if they kept it around.
In some prequel material I read the believed loss of the Pegasus and the fleet with it at the Battle of Molachy a couple yahrn prior to "Saga of A Star World" created a feeling of pending defeat in the colonial population and created the mindset where the colonials would accept an armistice with the cylons after nearly 1,000 yahrn of war.
The one thing I would question is why Commander Caine himself would have any illusions about defeating the cylon empire. His own fleet was destroyed. The colonials had been losing ground for nearly a thousand yahrn. When he met the Galactica he found the remnants of a defeated people on the edge of survival. He himself was unable to make contact with the colonial military for two years even before the home fleet was destroyed in "Saga of a Star World". From what we know of the situation even if Caine had 10 Battlestars there is no hope of destroying the cylon empire. If I could improve anything I would have make the battle out of forced neccesity not choice on the part of Commander Caine.
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