If there’s one thing the Buffy production team learnt from the climax to the second season, it was how to pace the season climax. In particular, do not put a stand-alone episode, no matter how good it seems, just before the two-part season finale. ‘Go Fish’ is one of those episodes which is perfectly sound with a good premise- but it could fit anywhere in the show’s run, and putting it here interrupts the build-up to the resolution of the season-long arc.

For such an aquatically-themed episode, it’s appropriate that it for three-quarters of its length it should be based on a red herring. The best swimmer in the school vanishes, his eviscerated remains are found on the beach, and a strange creature is glimpsed creeping into the outfall pipe. It happens again, just as the Sunnydale High swim team are preparing for the state championships. And for most of the episode, in fact until Buffy herself witnesses the transformation of the one halfway decent swimmer into one of the creatures, the gang (and some of the less attentive audience members) have been working on the premise that the creatures are killing the swim team. Wrong- they are the swim team.

Buffy would touch on the issues around high school athletes several times- here the emphasis is on the way the swim team are treated as a special case by Principal Snyder and the effect that the modified steroids have on their behaviour. It seems as if the swim team were a pretty obnoxious bunch to begin with, although clearly their sexual urges are heightened; Buffy is a potential date rape victim and it’s fairly clear at the end of the episode that the coach suffers a fate worse than death- the fate he’d intended for Buffy. There’s also some comedy in the way that Willow and Cordelia start perving over the hunky new swimmer before realising that it’s Xander- suddenly, reduced to his Speedos, Xander is all the more desirable; the counterpart to this scene is the slightly overdone one where Cordy thinks that Xander has been transformed into one of the creatures, which is amusing up to a point.

The creatures themselves are generally well done- they photograph well under water, which makes the above mentioned pool scene all the better- and the transformation of Gage is particularly effective as his hand peels away in a special effect which does manage to convey the agony of the change. Performances all round are strong, with the first real development of Jonathan’s character for a while, and for once everybody has something to do- Buffy investigates, Willow interrogates and Xander inhales. It’s a reasonably good episode, but the only problem is that its placing in the season means that it breaks the build-up. Angelus’s only appearance is a (presumably contractual) cameo to help Buffy deduce that the swimmers must be taking something which taints their blood, with no hint of what he might have planned next. So good, straightforward Buffy- just a wobble in what should have been the crescendo at the end of the season.