Remember that time a style show premiered on a TV channel and it featured Jane Pratt, Winona Ryder, Kurt Andersen and three little oddball magazines called Fame, Details and Spy? Of course you don’t, you were probably in third grade. THE YEAR: 1989. THE CHANNEL: MTV. And here is a detailed account of all that magic, from “House of Style: Episode One.” Oh and after that, there are many, many more. Like, twelve seasons more. (Don’t miss episode 5, which had Cindy Crawford and Tracey Ullman in bathrobes gabbing. In The Plaza.)

I’m With Awesome: Fire-Walking With Tony Robbins

by Kit Dillon

Over the weekend, The Daily News reported that at least 21 people had their Tony Robbins’ “Unleash The Power Within” (UPW) event cut short when they burned their feet while attempting to walk on fire. It sounds ridiculous. But every year Tony Robbins inspires tens of thousands of people to do this exact same thing. Including, at one time, myself. Earlier this year I attended a Robbins’ UPW event in The New Jersey Meadowlands Expo Hall and Arena to find out how he does it. This is what I saw.

DAY ONE: THE LIFE-CHANGING PUSH

When I arrived outside the arena, a large group of people were gathered with a leader at their center, all of them chanting “Success!” Crew members in green shirts circled the group, clapping and whooping and smiling at anybody who veered too closely into their orbits.

A man named Isis ceremonially placed a lanyard with my ID card hanging from it over my neck. Raising his hands up for a double high five, he shouted, “This will change your life!” He encouraged me to sign up for my “Motivation Session,” which I got for free by attending. When I told him I would, he gave me another double high five. On Planet Tony, this was your “aloha” — Hello, Goodbye, Double high five!

We were there to demonstrate our individual commitment to the discipline and philosophy of “Constant and Never-ending Improvement — CANI!” God knows what any of that meant, but Tony had told us he could deliver, and we were excited. The promise of the American dream is that through hard work and the pulling of bootstraps we can achieve anything — or, in Tony talk, we can all “actuate our desires.” Those of us in attendance just needed a push, and Tony’s promise was that he could provide it. Tony was, in fact, rock chock full of push.

Born in North Hollywood, on February 29, 1960, Anthony Jay Mahavorick did not keep his father’s name. This was the first of many changes that transformed Anthony ‘Tony’ Robbins, a poor boy living with an abusive mother, into one of the most successful and influential motivational coaches in the country. At 18, Tony Robbins began his career promoting the American self-help pioneer Jim Rohn and his motivational seminars. These events, along with his study in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), will become Tony’s template for the UPW experience.

In 2002, Accenture business consultants ranked Tony 45th in their list of top 50 business intellectuals, right after Richard Branson. Most recently, Tony Robbins has developed and starred in a motivational series called “Breakthrough on Oprah’s OWN network. His personal worth has been placed in the 100’s of millions of dollars. Like Jim Rohn, Tony’s rag-to-riches story has become its own best example of the influence that motivational speaking can have on a single person.

One of the green-shirted crew members told me, “You’re in the right place,” which seemed an optimistic assertion for a Thursday afternoon in Secaucus, New Jersey. Though infectious optimism appears to be the job description that comes with wearing the green shirt. From my left another green shirt came over and gave me a hug, lifting me off my feet and yelling “You made it, bro!” I told him, “I have!” adding, as he walked away, “I’m in the right place!”

“I know you are, bro!”

The ID card around my neck had written on it in bold letters, my name, my correct event location (Power Pavilion), and my admission rank (General Access). It hung from a day-glo orange lanyard that represented, as explained by a pre-seminar email I received from my personal Tony rep, the financial investment I’d made in Tony and myself: a heavy $995. In the email, this was called my ‘level of commitment.’ Spread out around me were clumps of people in their own color-coded groups, wearing orange, yellow (VIP), or green (Executive) lanyards, greeting each other with loud cheers and double high fives.

One green shirt asked a man, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Oh, every time I come here I enjoy myself,” he answered.

DAY ONE: THE WAY TO THE P.P. ROOM

As the sound of electro-pop began to emanate from the main arena, the green shirts around us started to clap and whoop in unison, urging us attendees forward. We moved as one now, clap-marched along.

As an Orange lanyard, I was diverted at the last second from the larger herd into the Power Pavilion which was, by any other name, the event’s overflow room, but nobody ever called it this. It was “The Pavilion,” or “The Power House,” or sometimes the “P.P. Room.” This led to one moment of real-but-embarrassing confusion when a man asked me for the P.P. Room, and I, stuck trying to mentally hurdle what would cause a grown man to call the bathroom ‘the P.P. Room,’ mistakenly directed him to the toilets.

At the front of the Pavilion, two large projection screens showed shots of the main stage inter-spliced with clips of a B-roll sports highlight film. For the next four days these screens would be our only connection to what was going in the main room. A conga line formed from somewhere and made its way around the room. In the background, “Goodnight” by The Black Eyed Peas started to play. Someone yelled, “Tony,” and everybody screamed. Through the walls, you could sense the size of the crowd in the main room. The 300 of us in The Pavilion each shouted back as loud as we can.

Dressed in all black, with a wireless microphone around his neck, Tony burst onto the main stage and onto our screens in the Power Pavilion. He told us to, “High-five the person next to you.” This set off a frenzy of dancing and high-fiving. A kid in a red shirt, the same one in fact who made up the tail end of the conga line, zoomed around the room, randomly leaping on people. This lasted until Tony finally asked everybody to take a seat.

First thing: Tony Robbins is huge. Gargantuan. At 6’7″ he has the same exaggerated proportions of anyone that pushes their way past that 6′ 4″ mark, though it’s hard to say just where that exaggeration begins for sure. On the screen he smiled at us, flashing a row of what my grandmother used to call “movie star” teeth. He moved around the stage with the presence and attitude of a pro wrestler — think a more linguistically nimble André the Giant and you’re about half way there. (Later, I’d learn Tony Robbins suffers from a mild form of Acromegaly, a result of an infarcted adenoma next to his pituitary gland.) His physical presence was imposing even transmitted through the video screens here inside the Pavilion.

Tony told us that being here meant we were not going to settle for less than we could do, be, give, or share with other human beings and with ourselves. This was how we would “maximize.” Tony asked, “Who’s here for more of something? Lemme see your hands. Say ‘Aye.’”

“AYE!”

The crowd was responsive, eager to participate. Next to me a man kept saying out loud, ‘It’s true, it’s true,’ offering this as an unprompted affirmation of everything Tony says. Engagement with the show and each other was, by Tony and carefully scripted production, highly encouraged. This active participation can, however, take you down some pretty weird avenues of borderline personal crises. Like the time, when I, at the prompting of Tony, and to my deepest regret, turned to an African-American woman, 20 years my senior, and said, “I own you.” This phrase “I own you” was, in Tony Land, stripped of any of its historic resonance and stood instead as a competitive and invigorating declaration — a throwing of the gauntlet. Throughout the weekend, Tony would look into the camera and say, “I own you” to all of us.

During this first session, Tony told us he’s “not into Ra-Ra.” He was, he said, never one for motivation or positive thinking. He didn’t believe in it. Instead, he believed in intelligence. He said, “I don’t think you should go to your garden and chant ‘there’s no weeds, there’s no weeds, there’s no weeds.” The audience laughed. He held his hand to the camera with his ring, middle and index fingers tightly pressed together and said, “Read between the lines. There’s some freaking weeds here, okay.” The crowd roared with approval.

DAY ONE: UNDER THE HAMMER

About five hours in, I clocked Tony at 240 wpm, ten words slower than your average auctioneer. At this manic pace the thoughts and assertions flow past at carnival-barker speed. In one brief span, Tony asked an 18-year-old girl about the quality of her orgasm, referred to his penis as “Mr. Happy,” and then transitioned to talking about the American Dream without any of us batting an eyelid.

“When I was a kid I wanted to do anything to not be a 99 percenter and suffer…The dream was become a 1 percenter and have a bunch of people become a 1 percenter also.” Rushing by at 240wpm, the equivalence of abject suffering with being anything except extremely wealthy just washed by.

Even breathing in time together, no transcendent moment of group feeling ever happened, like the kind you might experience at a concert when everyone is singing and dancing together. We were, all 5,300 of us, too intent on our individual achievement, too focused on how we would get across the coals.

“How many people here feel like they are entrepreneurs, masters of their career?” Half the room’s hands went up. Tony told us that he sees himself as “a life strategist, a business strategist.” No distinction between the two. The Tony we were watching on stage was also Tony Robbins the corporation and Anthony Robbins the Foundation. On Planet Tony, where half of the populations identifies itself as self-employed entrepreneurs and presumed incorporations themselves, nobody needed to ask why all corporations are people; they already knew.

“We’ve forgotten in our society — we keep lowering the standard, instead of raising it. The only way to stop this is to be a leader not a follower. To not apologize. By your playing smaller you don’t make someone else play bigger. All you do is give them a story as to why it’s ok for them to be that way.”

This might be true, but there was no time to process it, its relation to the 99%, or, for that matter, to Mr. Happy, because Tony had just told all the men to stand up. He had something to say about masculine energy. When he described male desire as the urge “To fucking conquer something,” the audience erupted in cheers and double high fives.

At the height of this, Tony pushed us to “make that sound again, stronger!” Underneath the roar, I can hear the strings of James Horner’s Braveheart soundtrack already building into its crescendo. The build was slow, but not slow enough that you couldn’t see what was coming next, which didn’t make it any less alarming when Tony yelled, “Freedom!” The room shook as the men, their fists clenched and chests puffed out, echoed Tony’s cry with their own. I yelled too because I wanted to know how it felt, but I didn’t feel anything — not even ridiculous. I didn’t feel masculine, or empowered, or more desirous to conquer. I felt nothing at all — except lonely.

DAY ONE: FIRE WALK WITH ME

It was one in the morning. In the darkness of a parking garage, somewhere underneath the Expo Hall, crew members were raking and shoveling burning embers in front of me. I was about to walk on fire. In 1983, Tony learned about fire walking from Trolly Burkan, a firewalking pioneer, and has been using it in his seminars ever since. An hour earlier, during a preparatory guided meditation session to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” Tony told us to believe in the transformative power of fire. He called it a metaphor for life. To most of the crowd, the opportunity to fire walk was a major selling point of the UPW experience. My personal Tony rep had reminded me three times before arriving here that I would, at the very least, walk on fire. It was simultaneously the culmination of the first day and the sideshow attraction of the entire event. One of the crew — a man with one leg, which I registered at the time as maybe a bad sign about all this — waved me forward.

“This is your time.” Tony’s voice intoned over tribal Fijian drum music. But he sounded different — younger and with a metallic hollowness that seems pre-recorded. Everything smelled of fire.

It was here, outside of The Pavilion, that I finally understood the immensity of a UPW event. 5300 of us were chanting, “Yes,” with this heavy inhale and exaggerated exhale, like a steam train leaving the station. It was odd, though. Even breathing in time together, no transcendent moment of group feeling ever happened, like the kind you might experience at a concert when everyone is singing and dancing together. We were, all 5,300 of us, too intent on our individual achievement, too focused on how we would get across the coals.

The fire, of course, was actually not a fire at all. It’s a bed of embers, which glows out from the dark edges of charcoal dust with a rich and seductive orange. It was a beautiful thing. Occasionally, one of the fire crew volunteers would come and shovel a fresh layer of coals on top of the pit and the embers would flare up and hiss as these bright sparks jumped up towards the ceiling. Looking at it, I was, for whatever reason, unafraid. It seems to be almost inviting.

Though I did try repeating the mantra Tony gave us a few times (“Cool Moss”) just in case. Because everybody else was saying it and I didn’t want to be the one guy who didn’t say it and then burned himself. You can never be too careful with these sorts of things. I also tried doing my power move a few times — this energetic thing Tony had us all practice before coming down here. You were invited to make up your own power move. Mine was a rather graceless fist pump, which looked ineffectual compared to the guy next to me who was power striking the air in front of him. In the end, how you decide to walk across fire is your business but for me I just tried to stay focused on that deep and inviting color.

When you walk across coals they shift and crunch beneath your feet in this remarkably comforting way. They are soft and do not, in the moment, feel hot at all. It was unlike any surface I’d ever walked on. But in a second it was over. Because walking on fire happens very quickly. When you do get across two volunteers will come at you from either side to throw water on your feet. A third volunteer, in my case a rather pretty young woman, will help you celebrate. I didn’t know I was supposed to have a celebration move ready, so I went for this exaggerated bow like D’Artagnan from the Three Musketeers. This probably would have been fine if at the same time, the pretty young woman hadn’t been reaching up for the Planet Tony double high five. It was a mistake of misplaced actualizations on both our parts. One I would only fully understand as, her arms extending up past my shoulders, I plowed my head with a firm and even pressure between her breasts.

DAY TWO: HOW MUCH FOR THAT T-SHIRT?

I was late today, and when I arrived at the expo hall, the 5,300 were having lunch. From a food cart outside, I bought a $8 chicken Caesar and sat down on a grassy embankment next to the arena steps. Next to me, two girls were practicing self-defense moves. A man walked past wearing an ‘I’m With Awesome’ t-shirt that has arrows printed on it pointing up and to both sides. Behind me, two twentysomething guys were discussing the video game Street Fighter and its relation to Tony’s message: “I know I should be happy ’cause I’m like the most badass Bison I’ve ever seen, but I don’t know, I’m just not somehow.”

A couple of crew members walked past to tell us the show was about to begin. They were wearing red clown noses. They’ve also exchanged their green shirts for more formal black ones that say ‘CREW’ on the back. I asked one of them, a girl, how much they get paid to work the event. She smiled and said, “Oh, I don’t get paid. I’m a volunteer; we all are.”

Entering the Arena lobby I saw a table selling “Tony’s Life Balance Pack — Cleanse Product” — for $199 and the “Anthony Robbins Coaching Sessions,” price variable, plus a myriad of multimedia products including, “Anthony Robbins, The Body You Deserve®” — $199 and ‘RPM — The Rapid Planning Method’ — $179 (an event special price) and “Creating Lasting Change: 7 Master Steps to Maximum Impact” — $299 and “The New Money Masters,” a 12-month subscription series. Apparently the entire UPW event has, over the last 35 years, been developed in conjunction with these products. The sales of which have become an unavoidable metric in the measurement of each event’s individual success.

On a table next to it there are identically shaped, square self-help books with titles like, Life Begins When You Do and If Life is a Game then These are the Rules and, cryptically, 212 the extra degree. There were pyramids of stacked plastic jars labeled “Pure Energy Greens.” Most of these products were branded with a picture of Tony Robbins, the same picture that you see on the banners in your registration emails and that beamed up from the program’s course materials. It was a quartering shot with Tony’s face turning to look you straight in the eye. His smile was broad with those huge teeth that are impossibly white — like if you closed your eyes and looked away all you would really remember from the picture was a slowly fading face and this row of bright pearly white teeth — a Cheshire cat smile.

From a clothing rack I buy an “I’m with Awesome” T-shirt for $20 and head back to my seat.

DAY TWO: WE’RE GOING TO NEED A BIGGER MANSION

In The Pavilion, it took me a few seconds to realize that the younger Tony now on the screen was video from a previous event, not a continuation of the live telecast. Like the Tony from yesterday, this Video Tony was wearing all black — but there was now a disconnect between him and the audience’s responses. Video Tony would say, “If you ask, you shall…what?” and the audience around me and in the main room would shout “receive” to the open question, but Video Tony didn’t seem to notice. “Come on, say it out loud!” he said. Again, we all shouted, “Receive,” this time a little louder, as if Video Tony really hadn’t heard us the first time.

Video Tony noted that while we all have desire, we are more motivated by fear. In 1984, Tony was expecting the birth of his first son — a child he hadn’t planned for — so naturally, Tony signed a six-month lease on the Del Mar Castle, located along the California coastline, for $36,000. The castle became his “magnificent obsession,” one that allowed him to envision a standard for his future. In that year, Tony told us, he went from making $38,000 to over a million dollars. We stood to cheer and applaud.

Later, Tony goes on about visiting the mansion of a billionaire friend. In its wealth and extravagance, the billionaire’s mansion, with its personal cinemas and indoor swimming pools, made Tony look on his own castle as a “Del Mar slum.”

Later, Tony goes on about visiting the mansion of a billionaire friend. In its wealth and extravagance, the billionaire’s mansion, with its personal cinemas and indoor swimming pools, made Tony look on his own castle as a “Del Mar slum.” Tony would spend millions until he can shake that feeling. We should too. It was a metaphor, you see, for always raising your standards and achieving your desires. As if anticipating any objections, Video Tony noted, “This wasn’t shallow. It was smart.”

When the opening riff to “Higher” by Creed started, you could feel another group visualization exercise coming on. By this second day, the pacing of life on Planet Tony had already become pretty predictable; it was almost comforting whenever the music would start to play. Video Tony asked us to imagine what we wanted from the next ten years: “What would you drive? What would your home be? Or homes?…What would your life style be like? What would you give?”

Around me members of the audience started actualizing. “Millions of dollars…a pool…I am free.” One woman behind me kept repeating, “chosen for greatness, born to serve.” Video Tony’s voice built as he told the crowd to accept these desires into themselves. Then the music shifted to the “New Republic Theme” from Star Wars. More cheering, everyone just envisioning the shit out of their desires, their future wealth, cars and houses.

And then Video Tony took it all away. After 5,300 of us had gotten off together on a little guided materialist day dream, Tony snapped us back to our existence now — to our empty and unfulfilled lives. Video Tony instructed us to make the sound of pain we might make on feeling uncertainty and pressure about the future. Flowing by at a clip of 240 wpm, the words “uncertain,” “fearful,” and “stress” are repeated countless times. “O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana rang out as the audience screamed out. There was real pain and anguish in the room. It was a terrible sound. The common unifier of failure, loss, and fear, brought together the crowd in a way that the fire walking couldn’t. Standing there, with my eyes closed, I joined them too.

DAY THREE: I SEE YOU SEEING ME

By the third day, anyone could walk into the main hall of the arena without much trouble. Tony was back, and I was excited at the chance to abandon the P.P. Room and watch him without the aid of screens. That morning one of the volunteer crew members approached me to say, “I’ve been observing you. You write a lot. What do you do for a living?” This was true, I had been taking a lot of notes. The crew member leaned in to check my name badge. I told him I was a student and that, like Tony, I keep journals. “Oh, well that’s good,” he said. But, he continued, the next hour wouldn’t need any writing, saying that I “just gotta experience it.” With a suggestive “I’ll check in with you later, brother.”

Later, it was hard to tell if the exchange was as sinister as it first felt. I did get the distinct notion that somewhere, someone was Googling me. While I tried not to let the exchange bother me I was, for the rest of the day, hyperaware of any glances and mouth-covered conversations between the crew members.

Oddly, that same morning, Tony launched into a little story telling about a reporter talking to Walt Disney’s son, Roy. The reporter asked Roy if he was upset that his father wasn’t around to see everything that had been done with the Disney name. Roy replied by saying, “It’s clear to me why you’re just a writer and not a visionary. Correction, a writer has some vision. You’re just a fucking reporter.” After telling the story, Tony admitted to having added the “fucking” for emphasis.

DAY THREE: WHAT DESIRE LOOKS LIKE

On a white board behind him, Tony had drawn two targets. These were not your traditional targets with concentric circles radiating inwards. These looked like a pair of cartoonish breasts — big and round with single small circles in the middle. Above these, he has written the word ‘DESIRE,’ in bold letters. Most of the people around me started immediately copying this diagram into their course materials.

We all have desires, and we all have beliefs, Tony told us. If our beliefs are properly aligned, they can help us reach our desire. After making this point, Tony drew a thick double-lined arrow on the board, the point nudging its way between our two mammary desires.

By having us forever exist in that otherwise fleeting moment, between want and ownership, when the newness of a thing really is making us happier, he would make better consumers of us all.

There were moments during my time at the UPW event when even the most logical ‘This-show-is-thought-out-and-produced-to-the-very-last-second’ argument would give way to the rather surreal notion that we were all watching the ravings of some fractured ego up on stage. This was one of those moments. I found myself looking around the room franticly to see if anyone else was making these associations. Had Tony’s subconscious just bubbled to the surface and told us that we were all about Tit-Fuck our desires together? No one met my eye. The audience members had their heads buried in their notebooks, while behind me two crew members marked the moment by jumping in the air and double high-fiving.

It was in these moments that the essential message of Tony Robbins, with all its blurred edges and imperfections, emerged. In these moments it was clear why Tony has so many billionaire friends, like Nick Swinmurn, founder of Zappos.com, and why The Harvard Business Review, Accenture Consulting, and American Express all ranked him among their top business guru lists. What Tony was doing with his message, at least momentarily, was reigniting in us, his audience, our ability to want and to crave more than we had. He did this not by focusing on what we already had, but by reinvigorating our interest in what could still be attained while also confronting our dissatisfactions. It is the expulsion of any despair linked to this dissatisfaction that makes Tony’s message so appealing and jarring. By having us forever exist in that otherwise fleeting moment, between want and ownership, when the newness of a thing really is making us happier, he would make better consumers of us all. On Planet Tony, our achievement became, in some way, linked to our ability to consume — so that we could buy another car, another home, a vacation home, a home that was at least bigger than our neighbors. He wanted us all to decide that living in a castle on the California coast line just wasn’t enough without a $3 million renovation.

To sit in a room where this idea gained easy acceptance was alarming. Tony Robbins is not just a coach or a motivator, he’s a salesman. He has, for the last 35 years, been perfecting his pitch, and it works. It works so well that people pay him to go and hear it. As I sat there, watching 5300 people hang on his every word, it became clear that Tony Robbins was one of the greatest salesmen this country has ever witnessed.

The ‘Unleash the Power Within’ event is a sales platform. It primarily sells you the idea of your future self and your future acquisitions, but if you care to step outside into the lobby it will also gladly sell you the crown jewels of Tony’s world, ‘The Anthony Robbins Mastery University’ courses. These are four separate 13-day programs, some of which take place on Tony’s Fijian island home. All cost upwards of $10,000 each.

Occasionally during the conference Tony would invite people up on stage to give 45-minute talks about how their lives had turned around as a result of these products. Again and again, we were told that these people had made investments in themselves that had turned their personal incomes from $10,000 into $1,000,000, sometimes in under a year. Take the story of Tony’s volunteer head of event security. High points: buying a jet, owning a McMansion in the Carolinas styled after an Italian villa, and buying two Ferraris, which he likes to drive around with his son Enzo. The moment that made all this happen was taking out a bank loan when he couldn’t afford it just so that he could attend Tony’s mastery courses.

Not being able to afford something is not a valid excuse when you’re making an investment in yourself, Tony told us. This was a constant refrain throughout the show.

After a while these sales pitches started to blur the edges of the UPW event between personal message, show, and advertisement. The emotional impact of experiencing this sea-change from something personal to something commercial created a certain depressing reality all its own. There was a sudden understanding that this commercialization was the message. It made me anxious. It made me lonely. It made me feel like I wanted to buy something.

There were payment plans and structured price reductions available for the $10,000 classes, if I bought all four I could reduce their price to nearly $7,500 each, which seemed like such a bargain. Watching the crowds of people line up, it was clear that I wasn’t the only person who thought so.

DAY FOUR: THE LONELINESS OF OUR DISCONTENT

What did this all add up to? It’s a question I’ve struggled with well past the end of the UPW event. It was raining when I walked out of the Expo hall. In the courtyard of the Arena, there was a man with a digital camera strapped to his head trying to accept hugs from strangers. I was told he was attempting a world record for collecting the most hugs in an hour. A few stragglers stopped to help this man but most of the audience just streamed past him to their cars. Why have we come here if not to hug this man? Walking past me the crowd’s motivations for being there seemed diffuse. There was no single answer why.

The man was not going to break any records that day, and to me his dissatisfaction was palpable. We all know this feeling. It is the same emotional demand that the ‘motivational speaking’ circuit supplies — that feeling of wanting more and not knowing how to get it. In some ways we demand this dissatisfaction of each other. Our market, and as such our country, depends on it.

How can you find satisfaction in an unsatisfied world?

For four days, Tony, may the market bless him forever, had tried to give us the answer. He taught us to confront and overcome our despair, to want freely and without consequence. His whole purpose is to make you more effective, “to really maximize,” in the society you choose to exist in. It is somehow, in the framework of this, an optimistic message and after watching 5,300 people line up while putting down credit card information and signing on dotted lines, you realize, nearly reaching for your own wallet, how really good Tony is at what he does.

I thought of the people I’d seen over the weekend — the volunteers, the attendees. Like me, you may question why they were there, but at least they were trying. They may likely never become truly “satisfied” in their lives, no matter how many UPW events they attend. But what does that matter? The point is we live in a society that demands you remain unsatisfied, too. If you accept that as true, the obvious next question becomes, why aren’t you going out to see Tony Robbins right now?

Kit Dillon is currently working for The Moth in New York City and has been known to occasionally disappear to climb oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, start sandwich shops in Scotland, and design software for smart phones… but he would rather be writing instead. Photo by Randy Stewart.

ZOMBIE BEES!

“They’re actually very clever in a ‘sheepy’ kind of way. They’re not going to put a sheep on the moon, but sheep do remember faces, they recognize people and have long memories for complicated things. They’re quite curious creatures.”
 — Snarky Cambridge neurobiologist Jenny Morton throws water on any dreams of space travel that might have been harbored by the subjects of her recent study. Morton and her co-author Andrew King, of the University of London Royal Veterinary College, believe that sheep exhibit behavior consistent with evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton’s “selfish-herd theory” — that animals gather in groups out of self-interest, rather than concerns for the group as a whole. Sort-of a “greed-is-good” thing that you might expect from a gecko, but not from a creature so famous for blind devotion to group-think as a sheep. Bottom line: sheep are sheepy, self-centered jerks who are smarter than we think, but not exactly, like, astrophysicists.

“Would it be a good idea for Christian Bale to visit young Aurora shooting victims dressed as Batman?”

Hahaha, these baby birds think they’re people! People who cannot stop fighting over raw meat!

“Will Oscar Voters Look Past the ‘Dark Knight Rises’ Tragedy?”

‘The Dreadful Woman’ Who Ruined London’s 1948 Olympics

by Sara Morrison

This is a story — a true story — about Olympic highs and lows, triumphant wins and crushing defeats, the old and the new, and my grandmother and a horrible Dutch woman who leapt over her dreams like they were just another hurdle on her path to the gold.

The Olympic Games are coming to London this week, and with them will come crowded airports, crowded subways, crowded streets, and crowded stadiums — most built for the event and covered in corporate sponsor logos (which is better, aesthetically, than that heinous official Olympics logo or the terrifying mascot whose face is just one giant eyeball). British taxpayers will end up footing a bill of at least nine billion pounds — that’s 14 billion dollars — for all of this. They won’t get much in return. Tickets for many of the events (except soccer football) are difficult to come by, and most have been allocated to corporate sponsors or sent to other countries to sell to their citizens. Many Londoners won’t even get a chance to see the games that their taxes paid for.

It wasn’t always this way. Sixty-four years ago, in 1948, London last hosted the Olympic games, and they did it on the cheap. They had to. This was just three years after WWII, and Great Britain was still recovering from its losses. It didn’t really have the resources to stage such an event. It did it anyway. The “Austerity Games” cut costs by using existing venues rather than building new ones and putting athletes up in existing accommodations (military camps, college dorms, and youth hostels) rather than building an Olympic Village. Athletes had to bring their own food, and use buses and the subway to get to their events. Concessions were purchased using ration coupons.

But it all worked out in the end. My Nanny (yes, I call my grandmother “Nanny” okay? That’s how my family rolls) lived in London when the Olympics came to town. She loved to play sports (in high school she was so good at field hockey that she played on the boys’ teams like an absolute badass), and had even trained at some of the same facilities as the British female track and field athletes. So watching the women she’d trained with compete in the Olympics — and win, as many of them were heavily favored to do (with the USSR refusing to participate and Germany and Japan not invited because of all the trouble they’d just caused, there was that much less competition) — was very exciting.

And then a Dutch woman they called “The Flying Housewife” ruined everything.

You were 18 years old then, Nanny?

Nanny: I was 18.

And how old were you, Grandad?

Nanny: 48.
Grandad: No! Do you mind?
Nanny: 1948.
Grandad: I was 24.

Were you excited about going to the Olympics?

Nanny: We didn’t have all that hype about the Olympics, did we?
Grandad: Oh no, no. It was just the Olympics.

No Coca-Cola and McDonald’s?

Nanny: No. It was just on at Wembley. I went with four friends of mine from the Pearl Sports Club, where we got tickets. I was keen on running.

How much did tickets cost?

Nanny: Two pounds.

They’re more expensive now.

Nanny: Gosh, now they’re — well you couldn’t buy them for Bolt [She’s referring to the the men’s 100 meter dash as the “Bolt,” as she’s expecting Usain Bolt to dominate it again]. I mean, they’d be thousands. Nowadays, you apply for tickets and it doesn’t mean to say you get them. You apply for tickets for horse-riding in Greenwich Park and you get hockey.

So you don’t even get to see the events you want to see?

Nanny: No. Not the ones you want.

But in 1948, you could just buy a ticket for an event and go.

Nanny: Yes. And you got a seat. A good seat, yes. I sat with my four friends and got a good seat by the winning post.

Sounds like a fun time.

Nanny: I had a really enjoyable Olympics. The crowd was so nice. I walked up the Wembley mile. We used to call it the Mile, didn’t we? The Mile. And you all walked up, and the crowd was lovely. And then coming back, you got the Tube back to London, there were no crowds and no pushing.

You don’t think the crowd will be as lovely now?

Nanny: Oh, no, I wouldn’t go! I wouldn’t go now.

Why not?

Nanny: Gangs, yes.
Grandad: People were much more civilized in those days.
Nanny: Oh, they were.
Grandad: We just had the discipline of the war, you see … People behaved themselves during the war. You didn’t have louts hanging about the place and shouting and screaming.
Nanny: No, we didn’t. We didn’t… I don’t think my mother probably knew anything about it. My mother would’ve just thought I was doing something at the sports club. She wouldn’t have known. My dad would’ve known.

Wouldn’t he have wanted to see it?

Nanny: He didn’t get the time off, you know.

Right, Great-Grandad was a policeman. They probably had to have a lot of police and security there, searching people’s bags and things.

Nanny: They wouldn’t search your bag, no. Oh no, you weren’t searched. No.

Now they’re putting all the police on security duty to make sure it’s safe.

Nanny: Met police are having no holidays. They’re just having a rest day. We’re paying for that. Well, we are.

Even if you did want to go now, you’d have a hard time getting a ticket. They allotted so many to other countries so they’d all have a chance to see their athletes.

Nanny: You’ve got it. You’ve hit the nail on — that’s it. It’s other people buying them. It’s a lot of corporate buying. They give them to banks and all that sort of thing.
Grandad: Out of all proportion, really.
Nanny: You wouldn’t get near it now, the 100 meters — Bolt. And that’s been — well, Coe [Sebastian Coe, chairman of the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games] said it was being given to corporate, didn’t he? Who are paying thousands.
Grandad: Didn’t used to do it in those days.
Nanny: No.
Grandad: I mean, it was just athletics and people went to watch the athletics. They didn’t go to have a slap-up dinner and sort of get half-drunk and then sort of glance under their eyelids at what was going on.

So the people going to see the Olympics now don’t even care about sports?

Grandad: No.
Nanny: No, it’s like Wimbledon. They have a ticket free and they go and have a good meal and then go home and the seats are empty. That’s very bad.

Did a lot of people come to watch the 1948 games?

Nanny: Yes! Every seat was full, yes. We didn’t have television. If you wanted to see it, you went. You didn’t have much, you know, news people. If you wanted to see it, you went. No television in 1948.
Grandad: They used to have it on the radio, Doreen. Commentaries on radio.

Did people from other countries get to London for the 1948 Olympics?

Nanny: The people didn’t come, did they? To watch.
Grandad: I don’t know. They might have done.
Nanny: No.
Grandad: They might’ve come, Doreen.
Nanny: No.

Did they have concession stands there?

Nanny: We didn’t eat food, no. We went for the afternoon. I went from work and after dinner I went with my four friends. We went for the afternoon.

There were only four running events for women in the 1948 Olympics: the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the 4 x 100-meter relay, and the 80-meter hurdles. British women were favored to win them all. At least, Britain thought that Britain was favored to win them all. They didn’t count on a 30-year-old mother of two from the Netherlands named Fanny Blankers-Koen. Who would? Women competing after giving birth — and leaving their rightful place in the home to do so — were unheard of. And Blankers-Koen was so much older than her competition, but she had no choice: she lost her peak years to WWII. Blankers-Koen ended up qualifying for all four track events.

Nanny saw the 100-meter dash and the 80-meter hurdles. Dorothy Manley ran the 100 meters for Britain. She finished in 12.2 seconds. Blankers-Koen finished it in 11.9, winning the gold and tying an Olympic record. Manley got the silver.

This was disappointing, but Nanny still had the 80-meter hurdles to watch, seats on the finish line, and Brit Maureen Gardner was even more heavily favored to win this event than Manley was hers. Gardner ran quite a race, too — a new Olympic record of 11.2 seconds. Unfortunately, someone else also ran it in 11.2 seconds: Fanny Blankers-Koen. It was a photo finish. The crowd waited for the results.

You thought Gardner won?

Nanny: I thought she’d won. I was on the winning line and I thought she’d won. And all of a sudden “God Save the King” came up. And we all stood up and cheered, we went mad. But it was the Queen’s birthday and she’d just arrived.

You thought they were playing the national anthem for Gardner, but it was just because the Queen happened to walk into the stadium.

Nanny: And they announced that this Fanny Blankers-Koen had won.

Not British.

Nanny: She was Dutch. And we’d never heard of her. I had never heard of her. And Maureen came second.

So both of the events that you saw…

Nanny: Fanny won.

And the British women you expected to come in first got silver instead?

Yes.

Were you angry?

Nanny: Well, I was yes. We hadn’t heard about her, you know, and we didn’t know where she’d come from. And we found out that she was a 30 year old with two children. Dutch lady. Mmm. Nobody had heard about her had they, Michael?
Grandad: No.
Nanny: And we never heard of her again.
Grandad: Oh, no, she did run afterwards, Doreen.
Nanny: Well. I didn’t hear of her.

Nanny didn’t hear anything about her, but many others did. Blankers-Koen set an Olympic record in every individual event she competed in (the only event she didn’t set an Olympic record in was the relay, which is probably the other three women on her team’s faults). She won the gold medal in every event she competed in. The only reason why she didn’t also enter the high jump and the long jump, events at which she was also among the best in the world, was because the Olympics rules then limited participants to just three individual events. No female runner has matched Blankers-Koen’s accomplishment since. The Guardian recently put that 80 meter hurdle race as number 10 in its top 50 stunning Olympic moments , the International Association of Athletics Federations named her the Female Athlete of the 20th Century, and there are not one, but two statues of her in the Netherlands. One is outside the Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadium, where the annual Fanny Blankers-Koen games are held.

In the end, out of the 33 track and field events at the 1948 games, Great Britain won a gold medal in… none of them. The Netherlands, on the other hand, won four medals. Britain did win six silvers — three of them in the four events Fanny Blankers-Koen won. Basically, Fanny Blankers-Koen ruined the Olympics for everyone. Or maybe just my grandmother. Same thing.

What was it like, watching Fanny run?

Nanny: Well, the 100 meters, I mean… I was just amazed. It was a bit sad… oh, nevermind.

Why were you sad?

Nanny: Well, I expected them to win, I mean, we had such good girls.

And you had seen Maureen train, working very hard.

Nanny: They all did.

Any good American athletes?

Grandad: There always are.
Nanny: They must have sent people.
Oh yes, course they did. Why shouldn’t they?

Anything to add, Grandad?

Grandad: I saw the men’s 100 meters. And I think the 5000. Yes, I saw that.
Nanny: I wasn’t really interested in the men running long distance. I’m not now.

You’ll be watching on TV this summer. What are you looking forward to?

Nanny: I want to watch the girls’ sprints.

You’ll watch the women again?

Nanny: Yes.

Do you think they’ll win the gold this time?

Nanny: Well I’m hoping the, um — what’s her name? The girl with the seven events will win.

Jessica Ennis.

Nanny: Jessica! I shall be watching Ennis. I hope she wins.
Grandad: She’s a heptathlete, isn’t she?
Nanny: Yes.
Grandad: Seven events.
Nanny: As long as she can do the javelin. She’s not very good at the javelin.

Okay, but what if a Dutch woman comes in and —

Nanny: Oh, I shall go mad! I shall say, “Drugs! Drugs!”

Okay, so, 64 years later, another Dutch woman comes in and takes all the medals again, what do you do?

Nanny: I shall throw something at the TV. No, there is a girl who’s quite good. I’ve forgotten where she comes from. She can do the javelin. I think she’s an Eastern girl, isn’t she? [I believe Nanny is referring to Russian heptathlete Tatyana Chernova, who is very good at the javelin.] It’s a shame I didn’t save my programs, wasn’t it? I should’ve done.

The Museum of London has programs from 1948 there, under glass. They could’ve been yours!

Nanny: I know, I know. I never saved anything.

They called Fanny Blankers-Koen “The Flying Housewife” after her 1948 performance. Not Nanny. As soon as the recorder was off, she called Blankers-Koen “that dreadful woman.”

Sara Morrison is a journalist in New York City. She’s very lucky to have four amazing grandparents, none of whom are Dutch. Photo of Fanny Blankers-Koen statue by Ruud Zwart.

Here is a list of fast food chains to stay away from if you want to avoid inadvertently contributing to conservative super PACs or developing diabetes.

Recently I’ve been rewatching “Battlestar Galactica.” On a rewatch, I feel like it’s a very long haul. And I’ve now seen a lot of people cruise through the first couple seasons then get bogged down in, say, season three. It’s quite a bit of TV! For a non-fanboy or non-fangirl, it can get tedious. Reordering the Star Wars movies made so much sense; the so-called “machete order” for Star Wars (IV, V, II, III, VI, skipping “Episode One”!) is a work of genius. So I began to wonder, not so much about order, but: how can we chop down “Battlestar”? The answer: pretty easily. (DON’T KILL ME, FANS!)

But yes. You can skip up to 18 of the show’s 75 episodes. That’s 24% of the series! (Or if you’re really ambitious, you can skip 22 episodes!)

For completists, very good suggestions have been made about where to insert the various miniseries and webisodes. (Another version here.) I am including those where appropriate. But guess what? “Battlestar” isn’t best served by completism.

Here’s the watch list, shaded by must-watch, can-watch and eh-don’t-bother. There are some special groupings that you can omit as well. We’re going to do this in two versions: in the first part, a guide for first-time watchers, with no spoilers. And after that, I’ll make my case.

A disclaimer: If you skip episodes, you will not just be saving yourself time, yay, but you will also be missing information. In the vast majority of skippable episodes, there is likely one important backstory or plot point or piece of information. For the most part, you’ll be fine. Every once in a while you’ll be like “Oh hey what happened to that person?” or “Hey where did that thing go to/come from?” But guess what: that kind of happens anyway, even if you don’t skip. It’s a big series! And it’s a TV show. Sometimes people, in the age before DVRs, missed episodes and everyone lived. But it’s important that you don’t think you can skip a bunch of episodes and totally NOT notice. Anyway: ONWARD!

***
SPOILER-FREE
IT IS SAFE TO READ BELOW HERE IF YOU WANT TO WATCH THE SERIES AND HAVE NOT YET.
***

If you want to jump to the annotated version for people who’ve seen the show already, let’s go.

SEASON ONE

Miniseries, parts one and two. (Technically called Night, Part 1 and Night, Part 2.”)

1.1 “33”

1.2 “Water”
If you’re feeling gangster, you could pass this. No one should skip an episode this early. (20 episodes later, you’ll maybe wish you had!

1.3 “Bastille Day”

1.4 “Act of Contrition”
I like this one; you should probably take it but you can leave it.

1.5 “You Can’t Go Home Again”

1.6 “Litmus”
I would only skip one of these two. Of the two, I think I’d skip….

1.7 “Six Degrees of Separation”
 … This one.

1.8 “Flesh and Bone”

1.9 “Tigh Me Up, Tigh me Down”

1.10 “The Hand of God”

1.11 “Colonial Day”

1.12 “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 1” and 1.13 “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 2”

SEASON TWO

2.1 “Scattered”

2.2 “Valley of Darkness”

2.3 “Fragged”

2.4 “Resistance”

2.5 “The Farm”

2.6 “Home, Part 1” and 2.7 “Home, Part 2”

2.8 “Final Cut”
You’ve been in a long unskippable series! In part because the episodes were so tied together. Sometimes it was a bit of a slog, I know. Now, this one is a very beautiful episode; and it’s a nice palate cleanser, but it’s not necessary.

2.9 “Flight of the Phoenix”
Also a pretty episode! Has a backstory you can live without.

2.10 “Pegasus”

2.11 “Resurrection Ship, Part 1” and 2.12 “Resurrection Ship, Part 2”
These get their own color because they’re a different kind of animal. You can skip 2.10, 2.11 and 2.12. This would be a mistake probably, just on the principle of viewing pleasure. But you don’t actually need them, in terms of overall plot. You can skip right to 2.13 from either 2.7, 2.8 or 2.9. Are you in a huge hurry? Then you could skip from 2.7 to 2.15, 2.16 or even to 2.17. BUT it must be said: I would find the show worse for not having enjoyed 2.10, 2.11 and 2.12.

2.13 “Epiphanies”
This is totally possible to skip but it sets up something that happens like, a million years later. (I don’t mean that timeframe literally, don’t panic.) So don’t be annoyed when that happens.

2.14 “Black Market”
Any revelations that occur in this episode are handled again later.

2.15 “Scar”
Eh.

2.16 “Sacrifice”
This is a not particularly great episode but is not terrible.

2.17 “The Captain’s Hand”
This is a good episode but not needed.

“Razor”
I agree with the nerds that, if you are going for completism, this is the appropriate time to watch “Razor,” which is nice if you just skipped a couple of episodes particularly, AND which is a bit longer than the episodes, so it provides a nice variation.

2.18 “Downloaded”
A must-watch. Skiping directly here from 2.13 to 2.14 works out really well actually!

2.19 “Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 1” and 2.20 “Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2”
Um yeah, this is important.

SEASON THREE

3.1 “Occupation”
Uh yes.

Webisodes: “The Resistance”
Nerds say you should watch this at the end of season two. I disagree; I think it should go here.

3.2 “Precipice”
Oh my God.

3.3 “Exodus, Part 1” and 3.4 “Exodus, Part 2”
Hello?

3.5 “Collaborators”
This episode, surprisingly, is not strictly necessary; you can skip right to 3.6 with no ill effects. I like it however.

3.6 “Torn”
This one actually plays a lot better without 3.5 before it!

3.7 “A Measure of Salvation”
Not strictly necessary but not uninteresting.

3.8 “Hero”
This is something of a standalone. It’s a good one! But.

3.9 “Unfinished Business”
If you skipped 3.5 and 3.8, this episode is way more satisfying, and works a lot better!

3.10 “The Passage”
Not terrible or annoying; just skippable.

3.11 “The Eye of Jupiter”
I actually hate this episode and find it annoying, but it does play better after 3.9. And it is important.

3.12 “Rapture”
Essentially part two of the previous. Mandatory.

3.13 “Taking A Break From All Your Worries”
This is totally worth it just for the acting.

3.14 “The Woman King”
Annoying standalone. Pass!

3.15 “A Day in the Life”
If you are in love with the main characters, as you should be, you’ll appreciate this episode. There is no forward movement however.

3.16 “Dirty Hands”
This is a good episode but largely unnecessary.

3.17 “Maelstrom”
This is a good update from 3.9. Now…. an important thing does occur in this episode? But you’ll just take it for granted if you bypass.

3.18 “The Son Also Rises”
Largely important.

3.19 “Crossroads, Part 1” and 3.20 “Crossroads, Part 2”
Very very important.

SEASON FOUR

4.1 “He That Believeth In Me”
Yup.

4.2 “Six of One”
Mmm hmm.

4.3 “The Ties That Bind”
Hoo boy.

4.4 “Escape Velocity”
Still greedy to get to the end? Go on, pass this puppy!

4.5 “The Road Less Traveled”
Aaah.

4.6 “Faith”
Nuttiness!

4.7 “Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?”
Big stuff!

4.8 “Sine Qua Non”
*Braaawwnngh*

4.9 “The Hub”
By this point, you’ll be so happy you skipped some of the early episodes!

4.10 “Revelations”
*Screaming*

4.11 “Sometimes a Great Notion”
It’s important to remember here that a really long time passed between the airing of 4.10 and 4.11! People were freaking out.

“The Face of the Enemy”
These were also webisodes, and people say you should watch them here. I did not!

4.12 “A Disquiet Follows My Soul”
Yuppers.

4.13 “The Oath”
A smooth continuation of 4.12.

4.14 “Blood on the Scales”
Part three, essentially. Now: you technically could skip 4.12 through 4.14, but what would be the point of that?

4.15 “No Exit”
You want answers? Here are some.

The Plan
People say you should watch this here. It makes sense! It is an extended flashback; if you can’t handle that… then don’t!

4.16 “Deadlock”
*Hnerf!*

4.17 “Someone to Watch Over Me”
Are you enjoying yourself? Then watch it! Are you anxious and impatient? Skip it! You’ll miss a plot point that just won’t matter. But…

4.18 “Islanded in a Stream of Stars”
Hoo boy.

4.19 “Daybreak, Part 1” and 4.20 “Daybreak, Part 2”
Well, here we are. You did it! And you saved yourself hours of your life.

***
IN WHAT FOLLOWS, THERE BE SPOILERS.
***

Here is the annotated skip list, for people who have already watched the series.

SEASON ONE

Miniseries, parts one and two.
Obvs. From the genius opening to the stage setting to the role establishment, A+.

1.1 “33”
Absolutely. Battlestar on the run, cylons attacking every 33 minutes. Good stuff.

1.2 “Water”
All that happens is Boomer suspects she’s a cylon and there’s an explosion on-board Galactica. Zzzs. That being said, no one will skip an episode this early. (20 episodes later, you’ll wish you had!)

1.3 “Bastille Day”
Important! Introduces Tom Zarek, lets President Roslin talk about forbidding slave labor, Zarek’s prisoners take hostages, and presidential elections are promised.

1.4 “Act of Contrition”
I like this one; you should probably take it but you can leave it. This is a Starbuck episode, and there’s lots of flashbacks about Zak Adama, so it sets a lot of background for the Obama LOL FREUDIAN SLIP, ADAMA family/love triangle (love quadrangle?) issues to come. Also has the Doc telling the President her cancer is inoperable.

1.5 “You Can’t Go Home Again” This is the one where Starbuck learns to fly a cylon raider.

1.6 “Litmus”
Dicey! Number Five (Aaron) sneaks onto Galactica and sets off a bomb. Also this is the big scary investigation into the events of episode 1.2, but weirdly, you don’t need to have seen 1.2 to make it work! Meanwhile, back on Caprica, this is when Helo “rescues” Sharon from a 6. Honestly? SKIP IT. The whole “trapped on Caprica” plot draaaaags on.

1.7 “Six Degrees of Separation”
Haha, this is when a 6 shows up and is like “Gaius Baltar destroyed Caprica”! And then Baltar goes to the brig and then it all gets cleared up and nothing happens and the 6 disappears. There’s nothing wrong with this episode — but anything you can do to have less Baltar in your face is worth it. SKIP!

1.8 “Flesh and Bone”
Oddly, this episode does not move things forward much but should absolutely be watched, mostly because it’s a Starbuck episode — and it introduces the Two, Leoben. It also moves forward the Sharon story importantly, both on Galactica and on Caprica, ta da!

1.9 “Tigh Me Up, Tigh me Down”
Well, shouldn’t be skipped, as it introduces Ellen Tigh, and is actually a funny episode. If you want to go hardcore, you’ll miss nothing by skipping it though!

1.10 “The Hand of God”
This is the one where President Roslin becomes a prophet and there’s lots of space action, seizing a tylium planet from the cylons.

1.11 “Colonial Day”
All politics all the time; gets Baltar elected as vice-president. On that basis, I’d say skip it — but it’s also where, back on Caprica, Agathon finally finds out Sharon is a cylon.

1.12 “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 1” and 1.13 “Kobol’s Last Gleaming, Part 2”
Well you can’t very well skip a season finale.

SEASON TWO

2.1 “Scattered”
And you can’t very well skip a tasty season return from a cliffhanger!

2.2 “Valley of Darkness”
More resolution, more chaos, action, cylons aboard Galactica.

2.3 “Fragged”
Hmm, you pretty much have to continue the through-thread here; this resolves the people stranded on Kobol since 1.10, and also has Tigh declaring martial law.

2.4 “Resistance”
This is when Starbuck meets Anders on Caprica! Also the martial law issue is dealt with.

2.5 “The Farm”
Cannot possibly skip the episode where Starbuck wakes up in a mysterious hospital. Also, Roslin splits the fleet.

2.6 “Home, Part 1” and 2.7 “Home, Part 2”
Starbuck returns. With Other Sharon. And they all go to Kobol with the arrow of Apollo! And figure out what it does!

2.8 “Final Cut”
So, you can completely skip this one. It’s worth it artistically, in that the ending is phenomenal, and introduces a new character (special guest star!). But you get to that character anyway eventually, and you don’t need the whole episode to get her. Still, this one is highly pleasurable.

2.9 “Flight of the Phoenix”
Chief starts building the stealth fighter; Sharon saves the ship from a cylon viral attack. Nothing wrong with this episode at all. It’s simply unneeded.

2.10 “Pegasus”
Well, yes, The Pegasus shows up.

2.11 “Resurrection Ship, Part 1” and 2.12 “Resurrection Ship, Part 2”
So! This is tricky. This is the whole Pegasus-Galactica plot. You can skip 2.10, 2.11 and 2.12. This would be a mistake probably, just on the principle of viewing pleasure. But you don’t need them, in terms of overall plot. You can skip right to 2.13 from either 2.7, 2.8 or 2.9. TECHNICALLY, you could skip from 2.7 to 2.15, 2.16 or even to 2.17. I would find the show worse for not having enjoyed this three-episode tangent however.

2.13 “Epiphanies”
In this, Roslin is dying, “peace activists” are sabotaging Galactica’s ammunition, Baltar goes to visit the Six, and Sharon’s fetus saves Roslin. Then Baltar gives the 6 a nuclear warhead??? Bizarre. I’ve never understood that. I suppose you have to watch it for Roslin’s salvation. You will survive if you don’t.

2.14 “Black Market”
Hmm. The one important bit of information is that Roslin remembers seeing Baltar on Caprica with Caprica 6. Apart from that, this episode is useless. Guess what, there’s a black market. Go figure.

2.15 “Scar”
So there’s a cylon ship named Scar. Also, Lee and Starbuck make out. That’s it.

2.16 “Sacrifice”
Another standalone episode: terrorists take over the lounge in Cloud Nine! VERY skippable, but not bad.

2.17 “The Captain’s Hand”
The abortion episode. Lee becomes the captain of Pegasus. Baltar announces his run for presidency. This is a TOTALLY good episode but you can do without.

“Razor”
I agree with the nerds that, if you are going for completism, this is the appropriate time to watch “Razor,” which is nice if you just skipped a couple of episodes particularly, AND which is a bit longer than the episodes, so it provides a nice variation.

2.18 “Downloaded”
A must-watch. One reason to skip episodes to move faster is that it takes far too long for us to get a look at things from the cylon side. Skiping directly from 2.13 to 2.18 works out really well actually!

2.19 “Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 1” and 2.20 “Lay Down Your Burdens, Part 2”
The election nears; the rescue mission to Caprica; Cavil is introduced; the election comes; a year passes. I mean, obviously, yes.

Webisodes: “The Resistance”
This is where nerds say you should watch the 10 short webisodes documenting life on New Caprica. They’re like, three minutes each.

SEASON THREE

3.1 “Occupation”
Are you kidding me.

Webisodes: “The Resistance”
Nerds say you should watch this at the end of season two. I disagree; I think it should go here.

3.2 “Precipice”
Oh my God.

3.3 “Exodus, Part 1” and 3.4 “Exodus, Part 2”
Hello?

3.5 “Collaborators”
E’rybody back on Galactica! Bad times. This episode is not strictly necessary; you can skip right to 3.6 with no ill effects.

3.6 “Torn”
This one actually plays a lot better without 3.5 before it!

3.7 “A Measure of Salvation”
Resolves 3.6. Not strictly necessary but not uninteresting.

3.8 “Hero”
A man from Admiral Adama’s past appears in a space ship! I like this episode but it’s in no way necessary.

3.9 “Unfinished Business”
So this is the episode where everyone gets in the boxing ring and has flashbacks to their love lives on New Caprica, basically. It’s actually rather startling that they waited so long to address what happened in the long gap. So good news! If you skipped 3.5 and 3.8, it works a lot better!

3.10 “The Passage”
So all the fleet’s food gets contaminated and they have to fly through some terrible bit of space (why? Never really got that) to get to the other side and make more food. I like this episode because I like the pilot Kat, but it’s not necessary in the slightest.

3.11 “The Eye of Jupiter”
This is when they stop at this planet (“for food”) and find this temple and the cylons want in on the temple too and there is trouble. Weirdly I hate this episode but it’s kind of a tentpole. It’s good after 3.9.

3.12 “Rapture”
Essentially part two of the previous. Mandatory. (They box the Threes! Boo!)

3.13 “Taking A Break From All Your Worries”
So this is mostly about Baltar returning to Galactica. This is really worth it just for Laura Roslin freaking out on him.

3.14 “The Woman King”
Lord. This is the one where the Sagittaron refugees are victimized. Pass!

3.15 “A Day in the Life”
This is Admiral Adama’s wedding anniversary episode. Cally and Chief get stuck in a malfunctioning airlock. There are some charming Roslin-Adama moments, which of course are never to be missed… AND YET. Not a very good episode.

3.16 “Dirty Hands”
This is a good episode but largely unnecessary; it’s a Chief episode, which is always “yay,” and largely about labor. It also sets up the messianic Baltar a bit.

3.17 “Maelstrom”
Starbuck episode. Is a good update from 3.9, the boxing/relationships episode. Also weirdly, Leoben does this whole “Ghost of Christmas Past” with Starbuck and Starbuck’s mom. How/why? (Head injury.) This episode is… unnecessary. There’s lots more crazy Kara in the future! I KNOW that this is where Starbuck disappears! But yup: they play the tape in the next episode.

3.18 “The Son Also Rises”
The terrorism preceding Baltar’s trial. Pretty important.

3.19 “Crossroads, Part 1” and 3.20 “Crossroads, Part 2”
DUH.

SEASON FOUR

4.1 “He That Believeth In Me”
Kara returns.

4.2 “Six of One”
Um yeah, chaos!

4.3 “The Ties That Bind”
Oh man, this is the one where Adama sits at Laura’s bedside and reads to her, oooof. And then… Cally.

4.4 “Escape Velocity”
Attack on Baltar’s commune. This one has its annoyances but is mildly important.

4.5 “The Road Less Traveled”
Leoben and Kara in spaaaaace.

4.6 “Faith”
The end of Kara’s mission.

4.7 “Guess What’s Coming to Dinner?”
BIG STUFF. Kara returns with a baseship. Laura and a hybrid. (*Inception noise*)

4.8 “Sine Qua Non”
Yeah, this stretch is all action all the time. (Also: Adama waiting for Laura! My heart!)

4.9 “The Hub”
By this point, you’ll be so happy you skipped some of the early episodes! Time to unbox the Threes! Roslin in space! Balthar confesses!

4.10 “Revelations”
And how. (They land on… earth.)

4.11 “Sometimes a Great Notion”
(It’s important to remember that a really long time passed between the airing of 4.10 and 4.11!) Anyway, welcome to Earth, it sucks! And the final cylon….

“The Face of the Enemy”
These were also webisodes, and people say you should watch them here. I did not!

4.12 “A Disquiet Follows My Soul”
Yuppers. Laura goes jogging. A mutiny coming.

4.13 “The Oath”
These events stem from the events (Gaeta + Zarek) started in 4.12. Battle on board!

4.14 “Blood on the Scales”
Part three, essentially. The coup turns uglier. And… ends. Now: you could skip all THREE of these episodes together; but what would be the point of that? Why are you watching this anyway????

4.15 “No Exit”
A very large dose of cylon history. You want answers? Here are some.

4.16 “Deadlock”
Mommy’s back.

“Someone to Watch Over Me”
The piano player. Eh. You could skip it! You’d be confused later about how Boomer gets off Galactica, but you wouldn’t really care! Are you enjoying yourself? Then watch it! I mean you probably should. Skipping something this late is nutty. But are you anxious and impatient? Skip it!

4.18 “Islanded in a Stream of Stars”
Abandon shiiiiip.

4.19 “Daybreak, Part 1” and 4.20 “Daybreak, Part 2”
Well. Here we are. (Heh.) So… for those of you who HAVE seen the show, many of you feel like you can skip the finale. I hear you! But really, would you have NOT watched this? You had to! But… I feel ya.