I wouldn't have minded a "Xander kills Spike and must hide his awful secret" storyline.

Only if there's nudity.

I dimly remember there being foilers about Drusilla killing Spike at some point. That would have been funny. It was something like, at the end of the episode, Spike is talking to someone when he suddenly crumbles to dust, which reveals Dru standing behind him with a stake.

I would have liked to see him trip and stake himself on a broken chair or something.

It'd be a nice change of pace to see the scenery chew him.

My favorite scenario was one in which I got to kill Spike.

Harmony should have gotten the chance to do him in. With her precious wooden unicorn figurine. Or perhaps a tragic emery board accident.

Is the slash phenomena the result of all the poor, traumatized het women who had their illusions destroyed by Spuffy?

With regard to the Buffyverse shows, I think it's the result of Eliza Dushku and Christian Kane shooting enough sparks at their respective leads that you could have landed a 747 by the light.

I liked Spike. It was the Spoldemort faction of his fen that I couldn't stand. Between the Spoldemorts and the kttns, I started having fantasies about bringing down the interbunny, worldwide. Fandom (at large) enriched and enhanced my love for the 'verse for my first few years, and then tried to kill it, from then on in.

I do think in season 7 though, that the writers didn't have a frigging clue what do to with Spike, next. That's too bad. To me, his story read like:

1) We have to have him do something bad enough to motivate him to get a soul.

2) He's different. He has a soul now.

3) Oh shit, that thing he did to motivate him to get the soul was too bad to now let him do what we'd intended for him to do once he had a soul.

4) Maybe we should have him be crazy for a while.

5) Nope. He still ain't coming back from that attempted rape (a.k.a. the a/r in the b/r in SR grr argh).

6) But he's different. He has a soul, now.

7) But he's different. He has a soul, now.

...

100) But he's different. He has a soul, now.

100) But he's different. He has a soul, now.

Snerk.

I thought it was not surprising, but still a bit jarring, that the Angel Spike seemed so different to me than the BtVS Spike. Different writers, of course, but the vibe was...off. Or something.

I liked Spike, too. I think that liking him might have been what stalled the character, though, because I think the writers liked him a little too much, as well.

I thought it was not surprising, but still a bit jarring, that the Angel Spike seemed so different to me than the BtVS Spike. Different writers, of course, but the vibe was...off. Or something.

I think Spike was forced onto the Angel series. My memory of it is that the WB pretty much made hiring JM a term of renewing the show for season 5 (along with all the glass and light; and more stand alones). I don't think Mutant Enemy wanted to let Spike take over the show, or outshine the hairloaf on his own series, and so they made him a little different. I think it worked okay. I wasn't upset he was on there, though.

I also didn't think the Angel writers got the Buffyverse. That's largely okay. Angel stood on its own merits. It was a show featuring adults (as opposed to just out of high school young adults), and was darker, and less mythic/fairy tale feeling. But there were times I thought they mishandled part of Angel's own mythology (making Angel and Angelus into almost two different characters, and somehow, Angel got stupid, which he never had been on BtVS). I also think most of them couldn't write Cordy, for all the tea in China. It was a relief that Fury penned her swan song. She actually talked like Cordelia.

Cordy was Cordy until the end of S2, and with a lot of the same writers who were writing Poddeila.

The combination of an inorganic plot development WRT Cordy/Angel and the subsequent overstretching of the actor's range killed Cordelia as we knew her.