He just gels better with this cast,
Oh, I think exactly the opposite. I like Spike, and I've thought he's been more or less fine this season, but he has seemed so completely out of place in LA.
And I'm sure a large part of that is because he came over from 5 seasons on BTVS. He belongs to Sunnydale, in my mind. AND he was dropped into the 5th year of AtS, so it felt like cramming a Sunnydale character into an already-cohesive LA whole.
There wasn't a similar problem with Wes joining the cast, in my mind, only because he was a small part of BTVS (not even a full season), and he came to AtS partway through the first season, when it wasn't a cohesive whole.
As always, Your Beagle May Vary.
I'm with Steph, mostly. I do think he's gotten to the point where he fits better with AtS now than he did with BtVS late-S7 (and I have a theory about that), but in the beginning of the season, he stuck out like a sore thumb.
His size may have been difficult to work around.
In other news, I now have seasons 1, 2 and 3 on DVD ... so I can enjoy what was, even though there won't be any more.
In other news, I now have seasons 1, 2 and 3 on DVD ... so I can enjoy what was, even though there won't be any more.
Ooh. I'm almost done going through my DVDs. It's fun stuff. I can't wait for S4 on DVD. Mmm.
I've actually much more enjoyed Spike now that he's settled in a bit--his scenes with Illyria have been excellent, and some of the old married couple stuff with Angel has been funny.
On the whole, I'm OK with it. In fact, at this point, if there were another season, I'd be fine with him coming back.
That being said, I'm sure there's someone around FOX who's floated a Spike spin-off.
I do feel like they could have done a lot more with Lorne and Harmony, since they're the soul-less good guys. They're not M's oG out of conscience or guilt or anything but a desire to do good that's greater than a desire for evil. In fact, I'd put the reformation of Harmony as possibly one of the MoG's greatest goods - I mean, yeah, so far she's sucked at being an evil genius, but they've gotten one vampire to switch sides. In fact, I think they could have done a lot more good if they did start working on a small scale and then let it build - they get Harmony, and then she brings in a couple more vampires, and they bring in more, and pretty soon they can branch out to some demons - and then it's not just everybody against the humans anymore.
What are the odds that sans Angel's watchful eye Harmony keeps off the humans? How long would it take? Weeks? Months? Years? Decades? She's not getting any older.
In fact, I'd put the reformation of Harmony as possibly one of the MoG's greatest goods...
See I disagree with you here. IMO, Harmony's only on the side of good because that's whose paying her bills and by nature she wasn't a very good member of the scary vampire troupe. Take away the random human blood tests and she'd be sneaking a bite every chance she got.
That's a good question. As long as she's a marginal member, she is more abstaining from humans just because it's what the alpha commands, just as in high school she would have shunned wearing mules if Cordelia had told her to. The more she can feel like an active force for good, and that she can derive some self worth from that, the less likely she'd be to feed on humans- though I do think she'd probably sneak human blood from other sources like blood banks every now and then.
