It's that time of year again. The Cheerleading tryouts. Buffy decides that she wants to be a cheerleading again, dispite Giles's persuasions.

At the practice Buffy is introduced to Willow's firend Amy, whose mother was a former school cheerleading champion. All seems to be going well until the hands of one of the tryouts (Amber) burst spontaneously into flames. Buffy manages to put them out and the pracrice continues.

When the results of the tryout come in Buffy is 1st alternate, Cordelia is on the squad and Amy is 3rd alternate even though Amy made a mess of the practice cheer almost wrecking Cordelia's chances.

Later on, during Driver's Ed, Cordelia crashes her car into a fence, then when she gets out of the car she is almost mown down by a lorry. Buffy, (in the right place at the right time) saves Cordy and discovers that her pupils have gone. She's blind. After, in biology class another member of the cheerleading squad finds herself unable to speak because her mouth is gone.

The Scooby Gang regroup in the library and Giles concluded that witchcraft is behind all these strange goings-on.

They suspect that it is Amy who is behind all the spells and decide to run a 'test' to see if she is a witch. Unfortunately, Amy realises what they are up to and casts a spell on Buffy which makes her act like a drunk airhead.

At practice, Buffy continues to act crazy and throws the suad captain across the gym. Unsurprisingly, is is kicked off the squad and Amy takes her place.

Xander and Willow rescue Buffy and stop her from causing any more damage but she faints in thier arms. When she comes round, it transpires that the spell is draining her life force and she is slowly dying.

Giles beleive sthat she only has a few hours left and they go around to Amy's house to try and find a spell to stop her and save Buffy.

When they get there they discover that Amy's mother, Catherine, has swopped body's with her daughter because she wanted to relive her time as a cheerleading champion, and she couldn't do that through the clumsy Amy, who has no interest in cheerleading.

Giles searches the house and finds a spell to stop her, but they need to go back to the science lab where they have all the ingredients to complete the spell.

That night, at the basketball game, Catherine/Amy senses that the Scooby Gang are trying to cast the spell and hurries away to stop them. Unfortunately for her, they manage to complete the spell just as she gets there and mother and daughter swap back to their old bodies.

Buffy is revived back to full strength, which is lucky, as Catherine attacks her. She casts a spell on Buffy but a falling mirror reflects it back on Catherine.

The next day, everything is back to normal again (or as normal as Sunnydale High can be. Buffy and Amy are back to being alternates again, Amy is living with her dad and she love it. All is well. As they walk past the trophy case we see that Catherine has been transformed into a figurehead on top of one of the trophy's. Her angry eyes follow them.

Our View

We don't really have much to say about this epsiode, it was OK, the fight between Buffy and Catherine was good and the Xander/Cordelia dialogues are really starting to hot up.

Our Score - 4

The Professional View

Still, despite a cracking set of one liners, this is the weakest script of the season. Even the twist in the witches identity is signposted early on. A Very popular episode with the boy's though!

Their Score - 5