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Split Decision

February 1998 (Preempted)
5V17½

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• Sign on Sunnydale street: Join the WHITE HATS! We need you! — "White hat" is a term for a good guy that comes from old cowboy movies, from the costumes that the heroes wore, as opposed to the black hats, which the bad guys wore.
   
• "Sure, you know big words, but you end sentences with two prepositions!" 17th Century poet John Dryden was the first to promote the rule that a preposition should not end a sentence. In some circumstances it cannot be avoided, and efforts to "correct" the problem will result in such amusing statements as Winston Churchill's famous "This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put."
   
• "Did you hit your head or something? Enough of the soap opera gag!" Daytime soap operas are known for their outrageous plots, and a longtime favorite is a character getting hit over the head and developing amnesia.
   
• "Okay, guys, Cliffs Notes version." Cliffs Notes are books that help in the study of various topics. The company was founded by Cliff Hillegass in 1958. The books cover a wide spectrum from English literature to test prep to Advanced Placement review books. Cliffs Notes explore the life of the author and the time during which the book was written, summarize the plot, describe the characters, and explore the themes and symbols in the original book.
   
• Xander: "Which one of you is the evil one?"
  Giles: "Pardon?"
  Xander: "Neither of you has a goatee, so it’s kind of hard to tell."
  
  In the original Star Trek series, an episode entitled "Mirror, Mirror" introduced us to an alternate universe. That universe contained an evil version of Spock—rather easily identified by his goatee.
   
• "I assume you've read Tegmark's theories on parallel universes?" Max Tegmark is a professor in the physics department at the University of Pennsylvania, currently studying precision cosmology (combining theoretical work with new measurements to place sharp constraints on cosmological models and their free parameters). He published an article simply entitled "Parallel Universes" in Scientific American in May 2003 (perhaps in a parallel universe, it was published before the hypothetical airdate of "Split Decision"), an article which he lists under the heading "Crazy Stuff" on his website.
   
• "So what do we do? Click our heels together three times and chant 'there’s no place like home'?" In the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy gets trapped in an "alternate reality" of sorts Over the Rainbow in the land of Oz. To return to her own reality, she simply clicks together the heels of her ruby slippers and chants "there's no place like home." Buffy also parallels Dorothy's line when she returns to her own reality: "There was a Giles there. And Willow was there, and Xander, you were there...."
   
• "Oh, well then why don't we just stop off at the Ralph's on the way?" Currently owned and operated by The Kroger Company, Ralph's is a supermarket chain in California, originally founded by George Ralphs over a hundred years ago. The Kroger Company operates supermarkets under various names in 32 states.

• The Wish and Doppelgängland — The alternate reality established here is later visited through Anya's wish-granting, and Vampire Willow is brought from the alternate reality through a botched spell. Don't think too hard about the timeline and logistics, as it's bound to make your head hurt.
   
• Passion — There are several references to this episode, where Giles seeks vengeance on Angel for killing Jenny Calendar, and ends up setting the factory on fire. This is why the factory is in the burnt-out condition we see, and why Giles is attempting the spell to begin with.
   
• The Dark Age — Buffy accuses Giles of "reliving your youth and summoning creepy demons again," referring to his summoning of the demon Eyghon, who comes back to haunt him in this episode.
   
• Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest — These episodes are referenced several times, including the appearance of the Master, Giles's startling "Can I help you?," Xander's "I don't hang out with the books" and "Xander. Is me. Hi," and Angel's "Is there a problem, ma'am?"
   
• Some Assembly Required — Buffy advises Giles in this episode to approach Jenny Calendar with the line "Hey, I got a thing, you maybe have a thing, maybe we could have a thing." Giles parallels that here with his statement to the alternate reality Jenny that "my Jenny — I mean, back in my reality ... we had a sort of ... well, we had a 'thing' together."
   
• Inca Mummy Girl — This is the first of Oz's several "near misses" with Willow, where he asks "That girl. Who is she?" As Oz is again seeing Willow for the first time in the alternate reality, he asks "Who is that girl?" ... though this time she turns out to be a vampire.

• Xander and Jenny are changed into vampires awfully fast. There's some evidence in the Buffy oeuvre that it can take place within a day (Jesse's turning in "Welcome to the Hellmouth" and Gunn's sister Alonna in the Angel episode "War Zone"), and Giles attempts to explain it with his "It takes merely an hour before...," but it's still pushing the envelope.

• Mark Metcalf makes his return as the Master, last seen dying in "Prophecy Girl" (it wasn't him in "When She Was Bad"), and Larry Bagby III makes his third appearance as Larry, the first since his coming out in "Phases."
   
• There's early foreshadowing of Mayor Wilkins, season three's Big Bad, when Jenny Calendar says that the petition everyone is signing in the Bronze will be "sent to the mayor."
   
• The window by the Bronze that the Master and his cronies bust through is presumably the same one that Buffy fools Luke into thinking he's seeing daylight in "Welcome to the Hellmouth / The Harvest."