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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 1, 2003 22:26:18 GMT
Here's a nicely thoughtful piece about Spike from the always entertaning and thought-provoking Daniel Erenberg, courtesy of slayage.com: A Little Less Ritual by Daniel Erenberg 30 Jan 03 Remember when Spike was evil? Today he's a sympathetic Slayer-loving vampire with a soul. It wasn't always that way.
At the start of season two, my favorite episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer was, oddly enough, "Teacher's Pet", the one where Xander falls for the massive Praying Mantis. I thought Buffy was a good television show, never suspecting that it would become an obsession. The first step on the road to obsessed for me was "School Hard".
The thing I remember most about my first glimpse of the episode is seeing the coming attractions at the close of the previous week's episode. This preview showed Spike in all his Billy Idol glory and I thought it looked stupid. Punk rock vampires? How lame could you possibly get?
How wrong I was.
Spike turned out to be the best thing to happen to Buffy since Joss Whedon decided that a bad Luke Perry movie could work as a television series.
"School Hard" was a work of genius. James Marsters entered the cast with a bang (and a pitch perfect English accent). He killed the Anointed One who he dubbed "The Annoying One", he ripped apart the school, and displayed to everyone how evil vampires could be.
I think Spike hit his evil peak in "Lie To Me". At the end of the episode, Spike just sort of walks toward Ford, ready to make him a vampire. As we cut away to another scene, we're left with a chill, wondering about what we aren't seeing.
Throughout the second season, Spike was the guy we loved to hate. Now we just love him. The first glimpse of a less evil Spike came in "Becoming Part Two", the second season finale. Offering something of a truce to Buffy, Spike became a decent man.
"We like to talk big, vampires do", he tells Buffy. "I'm going to destroy the world. It's just tough guy talk. Strut 'round with your friends over a pint of blood - the truth is, I like this world. You've got dog racing, Manchester United, and you've got people, billions of people walking around like Happy Meals with legs. It's all right here".
Added to his furor over Angeles pulling Drusilla away from him, we finally begin to get a sense of humanity from Spike.
Spike made one appearance in season three, continuing his sympathetic bad guy role. Yes, he kidnaps our beloved Willow and Xander, but he also has a heartfelt talk with Joyce over some steaming cups of hot chocolate.
This episode, "Lover's Walk", is notable because Spike becomes the first person to really get you thinking about whether it's such a good idea for Buffy and Angel to be in a relationship together. "You're not friends", he tells them. "You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends". Interestingly, the only other character that makes Buffy and Angel question their relationship is The Mayor. Two of the most deadly villains that the Scoobies have ever faced are the two given the most knowledge about the ways of love.
Spike made another triumphant return to Sunnydale in season four, taking Seth (come back for a return appearance) Green's place in the opening credits. Few shows would have the guts to place a villain so heinous into its opening credits.
Spike's season four role was odd in that he became comic relief, an impotent vampire, able to drink humans no longer. Still, though, he would have to be labeled a villain. He stabbed his girlfriend (Harmony) in the chest, tried to kill Willow, and caused major dissension in the Scooby ranks. This new role carried into early season five. Rebecca Rand Kirshner, a writer I'm quite fond of, wrote her first Buffy offering, "Out Of My Mind". In this delightful episode, Spike's attempts to force an Initiative doctor into removing his chip.
However, the close of this episode is what changed everything. Buffy comes into Spike's crypt, asking him to end her torment. They share an impassioned kiss and Spike wakes up, revealing the kiss as part of a dream sequence.
The rest of season five was almost surreal. Spike loved Buffy, even over Drusilla as "Crush" revealed. He tells Riley in a moment of heated abandon that he envies him "so much it chokes me". Even more humanity was added to the character in "Fool For Love", which revealed Spike's human self as a feeble man, a poet, and a bad one at that.
Finally, in "The Gift", Spike was revealed as a truly good person. It was an odd moment when Spike made me cry.
"I know you'll never love me", he tells Buffy. "I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man".
This, coupled with his leaving Joyce flowers without a card after her untimely death, proved to the audience that he really is a man.
Season six proved to enhance this. He was unable to look at the Buffy-bot. He didn't want the others to resurrect Buffy. Spike became the voice of reason for the group.
And then: "Once More With Feeling".
As the others get their "cumbaya-ya's" out, Buffy and Spike step outside. They sing a coda, kiss (for real this time) and the curtains close.
What followed was sweaty sex, betrayal, attempted rape, and a trip to Africa where he passed Weird Glowy-Eyed Demon's trials and got his soul back.
Of any of Joss Whedon's characters, Spike is the one who has evolved most over time.
Who would have thought that the guy who was hit over the head with an axe by Buffy's mom would one day be rescued from torture by Buffy
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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 1, 2003 22:30:14 GMT
Extract from an article by Hunter Maxin at ScoopMe - if you haven't seen Get It Done yet and don't want to do the spoiler thing, don't read: "I missed the old Spike. I didn’t even realize it until Buffy pointed it out, but we’ve had a great deal more William than Spike for a long time, now. His transformation from ruthless adversary, from literal big bad to neutered puppy, to good soul has been a fascinating and interesting one.
It has been nothing short of great television, and, as a viewer, I have loved the Spike storyline above all others for a very long time. He has become one the most nuanced and evolved characters in, at least, my memory.
But there is something to the original Spike that we have sorely missed. A certain fire. A certain lack of ruthlessness. A failure to close the deal.
Buffy sees this, and she called him on it.
It was, as far as leadership decisions go, one of the few she has gotten right so far.
The old Spike is back now, but with a soul. What this means, and where it leads, will be interesting, and I’m not exactly sure what to expect or what he will be.
But when he brought back that leather, he announced that whatever it is he is to become, it now looks like a champion."
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Post by PokerKitten on May 1, 2003 22:40:50 GMT
I'd been looking for david Fury's old comments about Spike, back in S5, and lo, I have found them.... I think the Furious One was misguided to say the least, but heyho.... This piece was at zap2it in Feb 2001 as they were working on "Crush"... "Buffy" watchers already know that love between humans and vampires is possible, having witnessed Buffy and Angel's tragic, doomed affair. But Angel had a soul, and for writer Fury, therein lies the difference.
"Spike is a serial killer," Fury says. "Spike is like the guy who's been in prison for years who murdered many, many people, and is not, in any way, redeemed, and is not what anyone would call a moral person. I don't know how we could root for a relationship with a guy like that."
"We've toyed with the idea. There was actually early talk about a Spike-Willow [Buffy's best pal, played by Alyson Hannigan] relationship. That intrigued us. I have to say, I was one of the voices against it."
"Spike is charismatic, there's no doubt. Good-looking guy, no doubt. But Spike, boyfriend, it raises a lot of moral questions about our characters, about the kind of people they would date. It would speak volumes about Buffy in a negative way, if she were to reciprocate. She is a strong, moral woman, and for her to suddenly go, 'Hey, he is kind of cute,' that would diminish her character."
One wonders, looking at Spike's little Buffy shrine (complete with photos, drawings, Hershey Kisses and stolen lingerie), how much of William still exists? "That's a good question," says Fury. "We've talked about that as well. We feel like there's a ghost of the person you once were inside them -- a philosophical ghost, not an actual spirit. It is, in fact, a demon, but the demon is infused with some of the characteristics of the people that they possess."
"Spike does carry a lot of that romanticism, but I personally don't think that makes him a good boyfriend choice. I'm a father. If my daughter brought home Spike, I'm sorry, I would not be saying, 'Hey, I give you my blessing.' It cannot end well."
Fury his fellow writers and series creator Joss Whedon also have to consider Angel, who occasionally appears on "Buffy." A spectacularly evil vampire made good by a Gypsy curse that restored his soul, he has always been singular in the "Buffy" universe, and Fury would like to keep him that way.
"Angel is something special unto himself," says Fury. "A vampire with a soul is a very different thing. If other vampires can choose to fight evil or choose not to be evil, I don't think Angel's as unique a character."
"It is still a choice for Angel. Yes, he's driven by guilt, but he's also driven by a blood-thirst. Also, can he be redeemed? He's not sure if he can, and, 'If I can't be redeemed, what's the point? Why can't I just go killing people?' That's the interesting dilemma for Angel. To afford that kind of conscious choice on a character like Spike would diminish both of them."
While not giving away the arc toward the end of the season, Fury does reveal that there is talk of bringing Spike to "Angel," perhaps next season. "If Spike became the Big Bad on 'Angel,' that would be great."
No, TWO seasons on, it would be great if Spike shanshued and had to help redeem that unworthy shit Angel... just my take on things! ;D
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Post by PokerKitten on May 13, 2003 12:55:27 GMT
Why Spike ruined "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Like Fonzie before him, this too-cool thug in a leather jacket has diverted a good show from its original mission: To celebrate the uncool outcasts of the world.
- - - - - - - - - - - - By Jaime J. Weinman
May 13, 2003 | A once-good show becomes a bad one through the unexpected popularity of a posturing, vaguely thuggish minor character in a black leather jacket. In television, as in life, events tend to repeat themselves. First there was "Happy Days," where a charming show about growing up in the '50s was revamped to focus on the Fonz. And now there's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," which has been all but destroyed by the Fonzie of our time: Spike.
As "Buffy" comes to an end, its fans are debating where to place the blame for the mediocrity of this season. Was it the introduction of a team of Slayers in Training, all of them so annoying that fans were happy to see some of them get killed? Was it the overemphasis on irrelevant new characters like Kennedy and Principal Wood? Was it the decision to build the season around a villain (the First Evil) who can't touch anything or do anything at all except talk and talk and talk? Well, that's part of it.
But the problems with this season can be traced to a moment at the very end of the last good episode, "Conversations With Dead People." That's the moment when Buffy found out that Spike, blond vampire, attempted rapist, and current possessor of a soul, had somehow been killing people despite his souled status. From that point on, the show has no longer been about Buffy and her friends, or Buffy and her mission, or anything that used to be interesting on this show. It's been about Buffy and Spike. And that's about all.
Look at the record. The next two episodes after "Conversations With Dead People" involved Buffy trying to find out why Spike was killing again, following which she spent two more episodes focusing her attention on freeing Spike from a dungeon. Since then, we've discovered that a new character (Principal Wood) has a vendetta against Spike, seen an entire episode devoted to filling out Spike's back story, and sat through various other plot threads about Spike. Even when Spike isn't on-screen, characters are talking about him. Meanwhile, the characters who used to matter on this show -- Willow, Xander and Giles, who with Buffy formed what is called the "core four" -- are getting nothing storywise; Willow gets a token lesbian relationship, Xander gets his eye poked out, and Giles gets to look like a bad guy for wanting to kill Spike (which, on the contrary, made some of us love Giles even more). In the words of "Sep," who recaps "Buffy" episodes for the famously snarky Web site Television Without Pity, "Watching episode after episode about Spike's journey when Giles has become a prick and I don't know a goddamn thing about what Willow or Xander are thinking, or even who they are anymore, and will likely never find out, breaks my heart."
It would be less of a problem if Spike were getting brilliantly fascinating stories, but he isn't, despite the potential inherent in the story of an evil creature trying to reform. At every turn, the "Buffy" staff has copped out on Spike's story, whitewashing his past (a flashback in a recent episode shows that even when he was turned into a vampire, he wasn't initially a vicious killer -- something that contradicts all the previous vampire mythology on the show) and making no attempt to show that having a soul has changed him one way or the other. By the evidence of this season's episodes, Spike is still a wisecracking punk who likes to hit women (he's hit Buffy, Anya and Faith so far this year) and isolate Buffy from her friends, yet we're still somehow supposed to sympathize with him, because ... why? Because he got a soul in the hope that Buffy would forgive his attempt to rape her and sleep with him again. Except for a couple of throwaway lines, Spike has never been made to seek redemption for his crimes; he doesn't even apologize to Principal Wood for having murdered his mother. The assumption appears to be that Spike doesn't need to atone because having a soul makes him a different and better person. But the writers haven't shown us that; all they've shown us is the same Fonzie figure from Seasons 5 and 6, only without the viciousness that made him moderately interesting.
And when they write a decent Spike scene, it gets cut. The second episode of this season, "Beneath You," was originally supposed to end with a scene where Spike expresses guilt for his past crimes, admits that he got a soul for selfish reasons (he thought Buffy would love him if he had a soul), and arrives at the realization that having a soul hasn't made him good enough for Buffy ("God hates me. You hate me. I hate myself more than ever"). But creator Joss Whedon rewrote this scene so that Spike talked mostly about the fact that Buffy "used" him for sex -- just another attempt to create unearned sympathy for Spike and deemphasize his past role as a killer and sexual predator. And James Marsters, a good actor who has shown himself capable of the kind of underplaying this show used to thrive on, made matters worse by playing this scene as an over-the-top fit of lurching and moaning, like one of William Shatner's lesser method moments on "Star Trek." (The gratuitous shirtlessness just adds to the comparison.) Any interesting stories about a vampire with a soul have already been told on "Buffy" and "Angel"; with Spike, all we've been getting is a lot of half-naked posturing.
But it's not just the overemphasis on Spike that's the problem; it's the way this emphasis has betrayed one of the most appealing themes of the show: that it's OK to be uncool. "Buffy" began with a high school girl, formerly cool and popular, who discovers that she has a destiny that will prevent her from ever having a "normal" life. But she finds some comfort when she befriends people at the school who are social outcasts for other reasons: Willow, a shy computer geek; the loyal but socially awkward Xander; and Giles, head of a school library that none of the other students ever seem to visit. The bond between these four characters was the heart of the show for the first four seasons, more than anything else, even romance (there were many episodes where Buffy's love interest, Angel, didn't appear or was relegated to one or two token scenes). Every week, these characters proved what we'd all like to believe when we're outcasts in high school: that the uncool kids, the ones no one takes seriously, are really the coolest and most heroic of all.
Seething, but part two coming up!!
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Post by PokerKitten on May 13, 2003 12:56:11 GMT
To make this clear, the monsters on the show were often portrayed as the twisted embodiment of high school coolness. In the pilot, Xander's friend Jesse goes from "an excruciating loser" to an effortlessly cool bad boy after he is turned into a vampire. Another episode, "Reptile Boy," made frat boys the villains. And Spike, when introduced in Season 2, was exactly the kind of smartass punk who makes high school a miserable place for geeks: Arrogant, cocky and contemptuous of anyone who wasn't equally cool, he was a superficial, self-confident Fonzie type who deserved to get smacked down by our awkward heroes. With the transformation of Spike into a lovable antihero, "Buffy" has stopped celebrating the uncool outcasts; instead, it celebrates the cool punk, the guy who would push the first-season Willow or Xander out of the way in the school halls. And it's not just Spike. Willow's new love interest, Kennedy, is a confident loudmouth with a privileged upbringing, who obnoxiously admires Willow not for her intelligence but for her power. Spike's nemesis, Principal Wood, is described in one of the scripts as "The Coolest Principal Ever." And Andrew, the show's answer to "The Simpsons'" Comic Book Guy, is constantly mocked for his geekiness, because a show that was once on the side of geeks now portrays them as buffoons or villains. And whereas the early seasons usually showed the characters learning how to defeat monsters by researching them in Giles' books, they now find everything they need on the Internet -- a far cry from Giles' wonderful first-season speech about the superiority of books over computers. It seems that on a show where an unrepentant mass murdering monster can be a hero, there's no more room for a celebration of the power of book learning, or the nobility of uncool people. Which brings us back to "Happy Days," and the Fonz. Just as "Happy Days" went on for years with Fonzie even after Ron Howard left the show, there are rumors that the character of Spike may go on after the end of "Buffy" -- perhaps moving to "Angel," or perhaps to a spinoff. The character is popular; cool characters often are. But "Happy Days" was a better show in the first two years, when it was just about the uncool Richie Cunningham. And "Buffy" was a better show in the first four years, before Spike fell in love with Buffy, before Spike started taking his shirt off in every episode, and when the focus was on four uncool people and their quest to rid the world of ... well, of characters like Spike. salon.com - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Jaime J. Weinman is a law student at the University of Toronto and a freelance writer on entertainment and media. I can't speak... I am incandescent with rage!! This is a subscription site but you can get a free "day pass" to read the article, and also to make comments.... I will certainly do so when I am at home and have moderated my language! Here is the url if you want to see the original - www.salon.com/ent/feature/2003/05/13/spike_buffy/ Never been made to seek redemption for his crimes!?!! WHAT?! The humans with souls who have committed heinous crimes but are Scoobies get away scot-free!! Angel is forgiven for anything he has ever done, whether as soul-boy or Angelus... argh!!!! Unfortunately have to agree with the shocking misuse of some of the other characters this season, but it is hardly Spike's fault - for many episodes at a time he had barely any screen time and what there was seem wasted, unimaginative. Grrr! And to compare JM's "Beneath You" acting to Bill Shatner is so awful it made me choke on my lunchtime raisins! LMAO!
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Post by Incogni2 on May 13, 2003 21:46:15 GMT
Obviously an 'uncool jerk' (geeks are intelligent and I won't insult them) in his own High School Daze suffering from continued severe 'penis envy' and now using the 'internet' to attack an awesome actor who is making the most of the 'lines and episodes written' for his character.
PK, may we send a collective [shadow=red,left,300]FUCK YOU[/shadow] pretty please?
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Post by PokerKitten on May 13, 2003 21:57:16 GMT
I was composing "reasonable" responses in the back of my mind all afternoon at work, but I was gratified to find theat the B/S shippers at Forums4Fans had already started responding and were doing so in a very mature, articulate and knowledgable way... they have said everything I wanted to say so I am happier now! Lol! Follow this link to see copies of thier letters to the Salon editors - www.forums4fans.com/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=001286&p=3They are reproduced starting about four posts down. I'm not a shipper, but I often lurk there because there are some very intelligent and thoughtful peeps. ;D PS - sometimes it takes a few attempts top get on that board when it is busy. Worth perservering though.
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Post by Incogni2 on May 14, 2003 10:44:25 GMT
Thanks for the link. I read the responses and they were very well done; articulate and refuted each point on a factual basis. Sorry about the previous profanity, but that was my first response and one of the reasons why I love to post here. I say what I feel, when I feel it. Don't do that in real life, am the epitome of decorum.
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Post by PokerKitten on May 14, 2003 17:18:19 GMT
Lol, let it all hang out I2.... this is how the commune will be! ;D Actually, if anything, I am more circumspect on the various boards - even here - than I am in RL. Very outspoken ;D
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Post by PokerKitten on May 15, 2003 20:50:12 GMT
Well, after that mealy-mouthed and -informed article, things have gotten a whole lot better! ;D There's the Tim and David interview saying Spike/James was the deal clincher, and how good an actor he is, and how the Furious One didn't really "get" that Spike was always different but he does now *faint... at bloody last!* There is also a nice critique of Spike here (as well as a look at all the other main characters on BtVS) www.atnzone.com/tvzone/features/buffyblowout_1.shtml2. Spike
The show may not be called “Spike the Vampire Slayer,” but Spike's journey is a huge reason why we both are such big fans. Joss Whedon and James Marsters took a dynamic villain who was only supposed to last half a season, and made him into one of the most layered, conflicted, passionate, witty, and indelible characters on television.
What is it about Spike that has created such a huge and passionate fan base? He is not just eye-candy, as some have implied; it is James Marsters' talent as an actor that stretched the writers and propelled the character. Spike is now a vampire with a soul, but even as a villain (which he was originally), and the soulless vamp imprisoned by a behavior-modification chip (which he later became), Spike was always about the shades of gray. He is as different from the black-and-white Angel/Angelus as it is possible to be. And he's dead sexy, pun intended.
Spike got us to root for him, not despite of, but because of all his faults. He appeals to the underdog in all of us and comes across as all the more human for the terrible mistakes he has made. We love Buffy for being a hero, but we love Spike more for trying to become one.
Tara's Highlight Moments: His first appearance in Sunnydale in “School Hard,” his soul confession at the end of “Beneath You” and his grief over Buffy’s death at the end of “The Gift.”
Billie's Highlight Moments: Yes, yes, yes. The way he stared at Buffy when he saw her for the first time in the Bronze in "School Hard;" his musical number "Rest in Peace" in "Once More, with Feeling"; playing twenty questions with Harmony, and waking up realizing he was in love with Buffy, in "Out of My Mind."
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Post by PokerKitten on May 18, 2003 21:19:36 GMT
I like this! www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20030518-9999_mz1a18morbuf.htmlSpike
James Marsters
This platinum blond, wisecracking Cockney bloodsucker for several seasons had to function with a microchip that prohibited him from harming humans; in the process he fell in love with the Slayer, regained his soul and all but hijacked the show. Whether he's fleeing town in a car with blacked-out windows while shrieking along to Sid Vicious' blood-curdling "My Way," slicing through the night with his scimitar cheekbones and Eurotrash coat, pining for Buffy or seen in flashback as the prissy, pre-vamp, Victorian-era William, Spike is a Hellmouth hoot.
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Post by PokerKitten on May 23, 2003 0:39:39 GMT
Pfft, the Chicago Tribune says: Too prominent, my ass! (No, not LIKE my ass, you evil people! )
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Post by PokerKitten on May 23, 2003 18:25:30 GMT
Aw, this is nice... *sniffle* "What makes Spike so real, and so disturbing, is his ability to reflect the messy undefined nature of humanity."
"Having been scorned and verbally abused by Buffy whilst trying, once again, to save her from herself, Spike was eager to demonstrate that he was not a lap-dog but an equal. He was confrontational, but the violence in his relationship with Buffy came from HER. He had shown over and over that his desire was to protect and serve. Given the chance, he would have treated her like a china cup. Buffy was the one that made it sordid and violent, and he in his desire to be with her, went along. Being a vampire, it was probably a romance scenario he understood. Even so, there were times when he tried to make it real; decorating his crypt to make it nicer, trying to have conversations with her, asking her out for more than sex, tossing her out when she became invisible and reveled in her use of him. "
"One of the defining moments of Season Seven was in “Touched” when Spike kneels beside Buffy and tells her he loves her, honestly and without guile. He loves her kindness, her goodness, that fact that she tries. Even Buffy couldn’t argue with his sincerity and the two were allowed to share a few days of closeness before the end.
Angel has had one-hundred plus years to determine his path as a vampire with a soul. Spike has had a tumultuous few months. His story is, as yet, unwritten. Given the relative natures of the two as human, vampire, and vampire with soul, Spike has consistently demonstrated a sense of honor, compassion, and integrity far beyond that of Angel.
In the final battle against evil, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer; Angel considered himself the champion and assumed he would wear the amulet of champions. Buffy had a different vision. She knew there was one individual that had repeatedly risked his life for her, for the mission, a being who having become possessed of a soul walked with humility and grace, a being who she trusted, who would do the right thing, the noble thing, a being who would seek his redemption in fire. Buffy took the amulet to Spike."
www.the-buzz.com/b_7_21b.html
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Post by PokerKitten on May 29, 2003 16:18:34 GMT
Spoilery! Matthew R. Heitzer's /articles/default.asp?article_id=108116" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.scoopme.com//articles/default.asp?article_id=108116Vampires with Souls, when boys turn into men. Angel and Spike. I could talk about these two all day. I already know that Kara is going to have a conniption fit over the length of this thing, and I haven’t even gotten to Buffy yet, but how could I cut them out? This is a divisive topic to begin with, because there are clearly two irreconcilable camps here. Angel vs. Spike. Which one was better for Buffy? Which relationship was more real? Who loved her more? Who did she love more? Who did she want more at the end? For my money, it doesn’t matter (though the answers are Spike, Angel, Spike, Angel, and Spike). I was never a shipper for either of them, and I was never against either relationship. I actually believe that there was room for both of them in the Buffyverse and they both were very real and powerful relationships within the givens of the Buffyverse. Some people have problems with the fact that Buffy could love both vampires that had a soul, but I definitely disagree. Both of them, each in very different ways, were boys (vampires) who grew up to be men (ensouled vampires), their childish animalistic ways replaced with a greater purpose. Angel’s soul was imposed upon him, and his was always at odds with who he was because of it. Spike sought his out, out of love, but it came after too much Buffy-related evil. There is a paper here as well, about Joss’ intentions concerning love, trust, and adulthood in relation to the soul, and, perhaps I will write that too. I will save most of my thoughts for that day, but I do have a few personal points to make. James Marsters was a superior actor that never got his due. His speech at the end of Beneath You still makes me...feel. There is no other word for it. I don’t cry, I don’t say a word, but it just tugs on my very being, directing me into their world. I know Spike isn’t going to stay dead, and I’m grateful for that, but I also still can’t get over his sacrifice at the end of the series. I can’t get over his last words to Buffy, her admission to him in the end, his denial of it all. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, while I always felt Buffy’s pain in her relationship with Angel - when he turned evil, when she killed him, when he left for L.A. - I never felt Angel’s pain where his love of Buffy was concerned. Spike, on the other hand, made me feel every drop of it, and, more than anything else, it is that powerful love and sacrifice on his part that forms my final impression of the series. It is Spike that I think of when I hear "The Sacrifice" in my head, and it is his loss that makes me want to cry.
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Post by Incogni2 on May 30, 2003 11:08:02 GMT
Certainly nailed that one on the head!
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Post by PokerKitten on Jun 27, 2003 11:09:02 GMT
James Marsters was dead when this interview took place, but now he's merely in limbo. That's to saythat Spike died in Chosen, the BtVS series finale, but before that episode could even air the WB announced that Marsters – and Spike – would pick up stakes and move over to AtS, which the network renewed for a fifth season.
It's been a long journey for Spike, one that actor James Marsters was happy to relive for Dreamwatch as he spoke in tremendous detail about Spike's arc over the course of his days on Buffy. "I'm not sure that Joss had a conscious plan for Spike," says Marsters, referring to Buffy and Angel creator Joss Whedon, the man who hired him, turned him into a regular, killed him off and then rehired him. "I don't know that he had the whole master arc worked out when he hired me or when he first developed the role on paper. I think that Spike was first designed to be a disposable boy toy for Drusilla. Drusilla was the main character, I think, and I haven't asked Joss this, but my sense is that Angel was going to go bad after sleeping with Buffy and take a new girlfriend, as often happens in high school. That girlfriend was going to be Drusilla. I have a feeling that he would've killed me off as one of his first acts of evil villainy. I progressed into a disposable villain, and I say disposable because in Joss's universe, evil is not cool. Evil is to be done away with. It's one of the reasons why the vampires on the show are ugly. The only vampire to have his pretty face and his pointy teeth was Dracula himself. The rest of us when we go to vampire are meant to frighten or meant to be loathsome, really. So, they built the character up as being extremely dangerous and extremely cool. I don't think that they would've built him up that far if they hadn't been planning to kill him. But they didn't, and I finished the season."
Having survived the whole year, Marsters had thought his days as Spike were definitely numbered. "What was that, season two? And that was it. My tenure was over and there were really no plans to come back," the actor admits. "Joss often has some characters come back for an episode so he planned an episode where Spike and Dru came back into town. Luckily for me and unfortunately for Juliet Landau, she was unavailable. She was busy doing a movie and so Joss rewrote that episode to be more about Spike. He discovered Spike to be really quite pitiful. He was a drunken, heartbroken sod, really, when we saw him in season three, and I was just in one episode that season."'
That guest shot was to provide the basis for a more permanent return to Buffy for Marsters. "It was watching that episode come together and seeing that I was really willing to embrace that side of the character that had Joss get interested in bringing me on as a regular. It was only when Spike became foolish and vulnerable and probably less sexy and less dangerous that Joss actually thought, "Well, hey, this is a person who I can explore humanity with." So, when I came onto the show full time, they really highlighted a kind of toothless vampire. They put a chip in my head, and that was really about watching someone be completely unplugged from his source of power. You got to watch him be really quite pitiful and at that point I was really, functionally and structurally, the wacky neighbour. I would come in a couple of times each episode to kind of twist the scene a little bit and then leave. That was cool for a while."
That approach was only going to be interesting for a short time, though, both for the actor and the audience. Marsters knew that if Spike was to remain on the show, the character would have to be developed further. "I did get worried when they put me in Xander's clothes, but that was the only time I almost got fired from Buffy," Marsters continues. "I was in a Hawaiian shirt in the make-up trailer and I was mouthing off. "I thought I was playing Spike. I didn't know I was going to have to play Urkel." Joss caught wind of that and it was before he knew me very well. I'm not really a complainer on set, but he got mad. He was like, "That ingrate, he's fired." But luckily that didn't happen."
What saved Spike and guaranteed Marsters a job for a few more years was Whedon's decision to put Spike where Angel used to be. "Then there was the idea to team Buffy and Spike, and that started in season five and really culminated in season six. I had the idea that Spike should fall in love with Buffy because I thought, in my head, the chip was maybe not the strongest choice," claims Marsters. "I thought it'd be more interesting if he had a real psychological reason to want to reform, to watch the guy have to choose to be good and how frustrating that could be. I never thought Buffy should reciprocate. I just thought she should torture him the whole time, and I expressed that to Joss. He kind of winked and said, "Well, you know, I'm writing the show and I have something a little more interesting than that". So, then he became the heartfelt love interest."
Being the love interest was never going to be easy for a character like Spike, and there was little point in duplicating the Angel-Buffy romance, so a different choice was made. "That took a real dark turn in season six," notes Marsters. "I became that unhealthy boyfriend that many girls have in their life, the bad boy who might be really sexy and dangerous and gets their sexual stuff firing, but the girls end up being burned by it. That storyline played out so dramatically, I thought that the character should be killed off. I didn't know if he'd be redeemable after season six."
That doubt was quickly overcome as Buffy entered its final season and the writers saw a new, pivotal role for Spike in the series' climax. "Redemption was just too tempting for words for those writers, and they decided to reach back and give him a soul. So, this last season, he was doing the journey of the redeemed man or the man who was trying to get a chance to redeem himself. The question was, how can you redeem yourself after 400 years of murder?"
By the time season seven rolled around, no one knew for sure what the future held for Spike, Buffy or the series itself. Rumours spread that the show would go out while still in top form, but then word got out that Whedon might try to eke out one more season. Later, the buzz was that Gellar wanted out, but that the focus might switch to Dawn or one of the Slayers in Training or perhaps Faith. In the end, Gellar announced her decision to hang up her stake and Whedon followed with the news that Buffy would indeed close up shop. "Sarah had signalled quite clearly that seven years was about as much as she could do, and so it wasn't a surprise to hear that she was going to go ahead and leave, "says Marsters. "I was a bit surprised that there was talk of a spinoff. I thought that there was enough interest from people who wanted to keep watching the characters, but at the same time, the show is called Buffy and they didn't have Buffy any more, so it wasn't a big surprise that they'd want to end it when she leaves."
Whedon, co-executive producer Marti Noxon and the rest of the Buffy writing team always knew that the show might end with the final episode of season seven. When word officially came down that the end was nigh, they set about building to a crescendo. The First became more menacing, the nefarious Caleb wreaked havoc upon Sunnydale and Angel returned to lend a helping hand. And then, in the last episode, Chosen, all hell broke loose. When the dust settled Anya and Spike had perished.
"I wanted him to definitely die gaining his redemption," Marsters explains. "As soon as he went on that trajectory, I thought that the only satisfying thing for him was to at least have a valiant effort at redemption, to truly show that he was in the middle of giving it his all. How do you redeem yourself from a lifetime of murder and not be cheesy about it? The audience might want me to be redeemed, Joss might want me to be redeemed, and I might want the character to be redeemed, but once you try to do that in an hour-long weekly drama and the back story is that he has murdered people for hundreds of years, it becomes a little dicey. That's exactly what Joss does best. He does the impossible, and he does the thing that other writers say, "No, well, you can't really do that.""
For Marsters, that ending was what he and Joss Whedon had been building towards for a couple of years. "Striving for that emotional resonance is really what artists are about, and we shouldn't really shy away from it. I think that redeeming Spike is something that people in their hearts have wanted for a long time. I've seen a lot of T-shirts around that say, "Love, Redemption, Spike." Spike's love of Buffy sent him on this journey to get his soul back. That was much, much more painful than he bargained for, and it really drove him insane. He really started to understand that a lot of being human is about self-loathing. I think that he really wanted to save himself, not for Buffy, but for himself.
"You really can't change yourself for someone else," concludes Marsters, who spent part of his summer touring with his band, GotR, and is due to begin work on AtS in late summer. "You really have to do it for yourself in the end. I think I would've said that he wouldn've done it for Buffy at the end of last season, but after going through this season, I think he wanted to become a better person for himself. And he did."
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Post by PokerKitten on Aug 24, 2003 16:16:29 GMT
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Post by nightnurse on Aug 24, 2003 19:29:12 GMT
;D Loved this, and am seriously thinking of adopting a Spikebot with all my pre-requisites! For the days when the real thing is busy of course!!
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Post by PokerKitten on Dec 23, 2003 18:46:44 GMT
.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,274|85222|1|,00.html How Good Characters Can Be Better in 2004
Spike on "Angel" (The WB): Crawl out of Angel's shadow now that you're both big heroes. And get a new look, because we're so over that coat and hair color. The Billy Idol thing is so last century. Maybe it's time to reclaim your inner poet and go all Victorian dandy. Hmmm ... .Well, I don't know about Victorian dandy... as much as I love William. But a change of gear would be nice, just like everyone else on the show is allowed to change their clothes every day! Smart casual... and a suit every now and again. Gunn's tailor seems good! ;D
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Post by nightnurse on Dec 23, 2003 20:35:37 GMT
;D That's cos Gunn's tailor is Armani! And yeah, much as I love that duster and jeans(how I love the jeans ) I think a nice suit with a blue,not red shirt would be just fine and dandy!
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