BSG Predictions Scorecard

In the gap between Battlestar Galactica seasons 2 and 3, I wrote:

One of my favorite things to do when watching or reading a story is
to predict where it’s going and then seeing if I’m right or not.

So let’s see how I do with my predictions for BSG season 3. . . .

The predictions I made concerned the first half of season 3, and now that episode 311 (the half-way episode in the 20 episode season) has aired, I thought it’d be appropriate to evaluate my plot prognostications. Let’s divide them into predictions that have been CONFIRMED, PARTIALLY CONFIRMED, UNCONFIRMED, and DISCONFIRMED.

(Post continues in the down-below part of this post)

SPOILER WARNING!

What follows will be my best guess at how to score the predictions. Some are harder than others since, looking back on them, they were presented as disjunctions (either this OR that will happen). I’m not sure how to handle that, but in logic if either half of a disjunction is true then the disjunction as a whole is true, so I guess I’ll take my cues from that and score such predictions as confirmed. You might wish to score these a different way.

Here goes:

Look for one of two things to happen early in season 3: Either the
Cylons withdraw and the Colonials realize they need to get back to
looking for Earth or the Cylons don’t withdraw and the Colonials flee
after conducting a brief resistance campaign.

1)
CONFIRMED. The Cylons didn’t withdraw. A resistance movement began in
the webisodes that were shown in the run-up to the season 3 premier.
The resistance was seen in the webisodes, and in episodes 301-303, and then in episode 304 the "Second Exodus" of the colonists took place and they started looking for Earth again.

Baltar: Since he built his presidential campaign
around settlement on New Caprica against warnings that this wasn’t
safe–and since those warnings have now proven true–his presidency is
toast. Expect him to be ejected from office early in the season

2) CONFIRMED: Happened in episode 304 when the Second Exodus began.

and
replaced (most likely) by Laura Roslin, though possibly by. . . .

3) PARTIALLY CONFIRMED: Laura didn’t immediately follow Baltar as president, but she was returned to office by the end of episode 305.

Tom Zarek: The next time the presidency of the
Colonies is challenged, it’ll probably be by Tom Zarek, who (according
to the podcast) became vice president but then had a falling out with
Baltar early in his presidency. They’re supposed to establish this
on-screen in season 3, and the result of it will be that Zarek has been
able to establish himself as a statesman (via the vice presidency) and
distanced himself from Baltar’s corruption, leaving him a credible
presidential contender. They may pull the trigger on this one early in
season 3 or they may hold off till season 4 since we just went through
a presidential election.

4) CONFIRMED: Zarek was Baltar’s immediate successor, as established in episode 305.

Caprica Six: Now that Caprica Six and Baltar are
confronted with the real life, flesh-and-blood (or flesh-and-whatever)
versions of each other, expect the two of them to have an uneasy
relationship (possibly preceded by a passionate one). For the last two
years, the two of them have been living with idealized, fantasy
versions of each other in their heads, and when fantasy collides with
reality, drama happens.

5) CONFIRMED: Caprica Six and Baltar had an increasingly rocky relationship until, in episode 305 it is revealed that Six is the deciding vote among the Cylons as to whether Baltar should even be kept alive.

The Boomers: I’ve got a problem here since we now
have two versions of Boomer in proximity to each other. How do I refer
to them? Both have been on Caprica and on Galactica, so "Caprica
Boomer" and "Galactica Boomer" won’t work. Let’s call the one who had
the baby Baby Boomer and the one who didn’t have the baby The Adama
Shooter Boomer.

Where is Baby Boomer right now? We didn’t see her at the end of season 2. We know that she wasn’t
with the hybrid baby because we saw that Maya still had the baby in her
care. They also can’t (or shouldn’t) let Baby Boomer run around loose
on New Caprica because she’d get revenge killed by the Colonials. So
she must be in detention/protective custody somewhere, most likely on
the Galactica.

6) CONFIRMED: As was revealed in episode 301, Baby Boomer (now "Athena") was held aboard the Galactica in the interim.

But since The Adama Shooter Boomer knows that she’s with the fleet,
finding her other self and making sure of her welfare will be a BIG
concern of hers.

7)
UNCONFIRMED: We never saw The Adama Shooter Boomer inquiring about the
fate of her sister copy. It could have happened in a scene we haven’t
been shown–and likely did, since it would be natural for one to ask
about the fate of a copy of herself that she knew was with the colonial
fleet. But since we didn’t see it (and may never see it), this goes in
the unconfirmed category.

An even BIGGER concern will be finding the hybrid baby, who is the great hope of Cylonkind.

8)
CONFIRMED: Number Three (D’Anna Beers/Lucy Lawless) took an
extraordinary interest in finding the hybrid baby (Hera), and it was
finding the baby that kept her from setting off the nuke at the end of episode 304.

In fact, notice in that scene where Numbers Six, Five, and Eight confront Baltar that it’s Sharon
who is the most aggressive, telling Baltar that humans won’t be hurt if
they don’t resist? My guess is that she’s the one most worked up
because she’s desperate to find the baby.

9) UNCONFIRMED: They never showed us what happened on the other half of this scene.

In fact, the whole current occupation (after the Cylons just made a
big show of withdrawing from Caprica and abandoning their quest to
replace humanity) is almost certainly driven by the need to find the
baby.

10)
DISCONFIRMED: At least apparently. The motives stated for the Cylon
occupation of New Caprica (i.e., learning to live together) had nothing
to do with the baby.

Chief Tyrol and Callie: They’re going to have
problems. Despite the fact that Callie forgave the Chief for beating
the snot out of her when he was awoken from a nightmare, that’s not the
kind of thing that can just be forgiven with no longer-term dramatic
repercussions. Maybe his nightmares come back. Maybe he becomes
morbidly afraid of hurting her and their baby. Maybe he slips and beats
her up again. Maybe they do something really interesting by having
Callie start holding the original beating incident over him. They’re
going to do something with this. You just can’t have an incident that
dramatic happen between two characters and then have it vanish into the
mist and never get referred to again.

11)
UNCONFIRMED: We didn’t see them have problems in the first half of
season 3, but I still suspect that they will later, for the reasons
stated above.

Apollo: Apollo has become the commander of the
Pegasus, gotten a little overweigh, hooked up with Duella, and
reconciled with his father. Expect two of those (the fat and the
reconciliation with his father) to go away in the first half of season
3.

12) CONFIRMED (as to the fat): He was back to normal weight by episode 306.

The dramatically logical thing for him to do is to put Apollo back
into conflict with his father now that they’re commanding the two
battlestars. Lee’s also in command of the better battlestar.
Conflict between them may erupt as soon as they start trying to figure
out how to help the Colonials–or they may hold that off a bit until
they get the Colonists off the planet.

13)
CONFIRMED (as to the relationship with his father): The two were drawn
into conflict over how to rescue the colonists and Lee broke his
father’s orders regarding what to do with the Pegasus in episode 304.

Starbuck: Expect her new husband to die in the
first half of season 3. The guy is an impediment to exploring the
romantic tension between her and Apollo, so he won’t be around long.
He’s already sick. Expect him to get sicker or die in some other way.

14) PARTIALLY CONFIRMED: Starbuck’s husband, Anders, didn’t die, but their marriage definitely hit the rocks by episode 305, and the romantic tension between her and Apollo came dramatically into focus in episode 309.

Incidentally, how about the twist in episode 311 where Starbuck and Apollo are put at odds by the fact that Starbuck views marriage as a sacrament and won’t divorce (but will cheat), while Apollo won’t cheat but will divorce (he did have a non-religious upbringing from what we know, after all). I’m sure this exact kind of crazy, insane, sinful situation has happened in the real world on more occasions than we’d first suppose.

Also, expect Starbuck to cut her hair. The lengthy locks she was
wearing at the end of season 2 are not compatible with her role as a
resistance fighter and ace fighter pilot.

15) CONFIRMED: Happened in episode 306.

Adama: Unlike Starbuck, he gets to keep the mustache for a while. If he shaves it off too soon for no reason, it’ll seem too gimmicky.

16) PARTIALLY CONFIRMED: He kept it for a while, but shaved it off at the end of episode 304, before Starbuck cut her hair. 

So, to tally things up, I made 16 predictions by my count. Of those–using the scoring system described above–9 predictions (56%) were fully confirmed in the first half of the
season, 3 predictions (19%) were partially confirmed, 3 predictions
(19%) remain unconfirmed, and 1 prediction (6%) was disconfirmed.

If we split the difference between those fully or partially
confirmed and those that weren’t then 75% of my predictions were fully
or partially confirmed and 25% were unconfirmed or disconfirmed.

You might want to use a different scoring system and rank the predictions differently, which is fine.

Whatever measure one uses, I’ll stack that record up against the National Enquirer’s psychics any day!