The Seinfeld Machete Order

I've been re-watching Seinfeld in a certain order. If the episode number is i, and there are n episodes, I watch in this order:

1, n, 2, n−1, 3, n−2, … ¹

Or in other words, I watch from both ends and go towards the middle: first episode first, then the finale, then the second episode, then the second-last episode, and so on.

You can also think of this sequence like so: 1st, last, 2nd, 2nd-last, 3rd, 3rd-last, and so on and so forth.

Mathematically, this sequence can be written as follows. For the k-th episode I watch (with positions k = 1, 2, 3, …):

• when k is odd: ⌈k / 2⌉ — giving 1, 2, 3, …
• when k is even: n + 1 − k / 2 — giving n, n−1, n−2, …

So the two halves of the run interleave, and meet in the middle.

I was inspired to do this on my __n__th re-watch of Seinfeld, this time on Netflix. The reason this works so well is that Seinfeld episodes really were very random and sometimes truly about nothing, so messing with the order doesn't ruin the enjoyment at all. Sure, some recurring gags or characters may pop in out of order, but by and by this never detracts from the experience.