One Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer's Most Popular Characters Was Supposed To Die Early
Most early episodes of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" kick off the same way — a new evil rolls into town, and by the end of the week, the slayer turns it to dust. Some villains last a whole season and become the Big Bad, while others meet their ends more quickly. But one antagonist was so well-liked that he stayed on the show well past his original expiration date.
When Spike arrived in Sunnydale, he became an instant fan favorite. The bottle-blond Billy Idol look-alike was only supposed to hang around for a few episodes, but he was so beloved that the powers that be had no choice but to keep him on the show — albeit begrudgingly. So how was Spike supposed to be killed off, and why did everyone behind the scenes want him booted out of Sunnydale so soon?
The British bad boy was portrayed by the shockingly American James Marsters, who signed on to do just five episodes of season 2. Spike presents an unusually large threat to Buffy, but he isn't even the Big Bad of the season — that title goes to Angel, Buffy's vampire boyfriend, who loses his soul and goes dark after a night of pleasure between them.
"[Spike] was just Drusilla's boy toy for five episodes and he was going to be Angel's first victim," Marsters explained at Comic-Con in 2019, per Comicbook.com. "Like the whole point of the season [...] was that Buffy would get her heart broken by Angel. They finally hook up and then Angel goes evil. [...] And then his first act of evil was to take me down. So they only built me up to be cool so that when Angel killed me he would look awesome."
So there you have it, folks — the most popular character on the show next to Buffy was fattened up for Angel's slaughter.
Spike was supposed to be killed off by Angel
Spike was so cool, in fact, that it invited criticism of the series. People outside the loyal fanbase were concerned that by introducing a charismatic character like Spike while Buffy was already dating a vampire and the line had already been blurred, the show was suggesting that demonic and dark things like Spike were just plain awesome.
"To his credit, I think Joss [Whedon] does not believe that evil is cool," Marsters continued. "He thinks that evil is laughable. And I agree and that's why his vampires were hideously ugly when we bite someone because he doesn't want that to be a sensual kind of shot."
But it wasn't just Spike's edgy attitude that appealed to fans — it was his sensitive side. The vampire's uncharacteristic fondness for his ailing partner-in-crime, Drusilla (Juliet Landau), drew a lot of viewers into his corner. But controversial series creator Joss Whedon wasn't actually interested in playing up Spike's softie schtick. In fact, he even had to be convinced to introduce Buffy's first vampiric love interest, Angel (David Boreanaz). Marsters said:
"I don't think that Spike was designed to be a romantic character. I remember when after a couple episodes, the fan reaction was that I was a romantic character. Joss backed against the wall and said, 'I don't care how popular you are, kid. You are dead. You are dead, you hear me?' I was just like, 'It's your ball dude. Like whatever, just don't kill me now. Just give me the five episodes. I'm poor.”'
Despite his insistence that Spike would get killed off, even Whedon was unable to deny the overwhelming adoration for him. This plan could also explain why Spike restrains himself to a wheelchair for a long stretch of several episodes mid-way through season 2, to account for his underwhelming involvement in episodes that were already written.
Instead, he was a fool for love
Whedon might have been surprised by how "Buffy" fans responded to Spike, but Marsters knows it was no accident. He knew that if he wanted to stick around on the CW series, he had to make his character an undeniable fan favorite, someone so beloved that they couldn't kill him off without causing outrage. Whedon wanted the actor to play Spike as "a soulless vampire that didn't care about anybody," but Marsters pulled out all the stops to keep Spike alive:
"Because I've learned that as an actor if you find the love, you find the gold in the mountain. You find the jet fuel. You find the thing that will connect you to the audience. What does your character love? And it could be loved, denied, love the crushed, or any kind of love. That's what's going to connect. And I was like, well I'm going to find the love and so I found it in Drusilla. I actually started undercutting Joss' theme from the beginning because I needed a job. I was a new father and getting diapers overwhelmed anything [...]"
Spike was immediately a weird fit for the show. He undercut the allegories that they'd established through the first season and caused problems in the thematic overtones and narrative threads of the series til the very end. Angel was already an exception to the rule, but as a vampire with no soul and the heart of a poet, Spike was a total outlier.
"They never really knew what to do with Spike," Marsters admitted to Radio Times. "Because the original idea for Buffy was that vampires were just metaphors for the challenges of high school, or the challenges of life. They were designed to be overcome, they were designed to die."
Spike was a 'weird fit' in Buffy's world
As Marsters says, the "Buffy" writers "never really knew what to do with Spike" — and it took them a while to figure out. Despite his distinct voice and impossibly witty dialogue, he was so incongruous with the flow and format of the show that they struggled to write him in season after season.
"So trying to fit Spike long-term into that kind of show is a weird fit," Marsters continued. "And so they were always like, coming to me at the beginning of every season saying, 'We don't know what to do with you! We have a plan for the season, we have a plan for all the other characters, we have all the arcs of all the other characters, we just don't know what to do with you again.'"
This resulted in a series of very strange arcs for Spike. When he resurfaces in season 4 and renews his quest to defeat Buffy, he falls victim to a military experiment that leaves his fangs neutered. Unable to kill people, his character is suspended in limbo as Buffy's punching bag and demonic double agent until ultimately falling in love with her in season 5. Still, Marsters credits the writers with finding clever ways to keep him around:
"And because they were so creative, they were able to figure something out. But what it meant was I think that I was plugged into the other arcs. I was the villain, and then I was the wacky neighbor, and then I was the wrong boyfriend, and then I was the fallen man trying to redeem himself. And then ultimately a kind of guinea pig hero by the end. I mean, the whole thing is, how do we get this guy on without having him ruin the theme?"
Marsters 'would have killed Spike off in a heartbeat'
Despite ruining the intended thematic framework for the show, Spike remains my favorite character. On top of being just plain funny, he called the ideology of the show into question, bringing new dimension to a classic comic book tale of good versus evil. Spike was a villain-turned-anti-hero before "Joker" made it cool.
Fans might have loved the romantic promise that Spike brought to the show, but Marsters wasn't so keen. As an actor, he was happy that "Buffy" kept giving him work. However, he insists that if he was in charge, things would have gone down differently.
"If it had been me producing that show, I would have killed Spike off in a heartbeat," the actor added. "As soon as the audience said, 'Oh, we want him. Oh, have him with Buffy. Oh, we love that character.' Like uh-uh. He's ruining the whole thing. I would have killed me off after probably three episodes. I'm kind of a bastard when I'm producing! I'm heartless! So I'm very lucky that they had more imagination and courage than I would have shown, frankly."
Spike and Buffy's romance is a tragedy from start to finish. After his most abhorrent moment, the Victorian vampire sets out on a quest for a soul and ultimately earns his heroic ending. He might have been a confusing element for the writers to incorporate, but in the end, Spike earned his stay on Buffy and is at the center of some of its most memorable episodes, for better or for worse.