In another thread, Fetching Mad Scientist wrote:

==> (Did you know that, in a recent interview, Mr. Marsters said that Joss didn't even like "Spike?")

I saw that interview also, and I realize that lots of fans share the sentiment.  But it doesn't make sense to me.  Joss gave Spike the one genuinely heroic death in the show.  Angel never got an heroic death.  Buffy's death was pretty heroic, but was more ambiguous -- was she dying to save the world or to escape it?  There's lots of text to say that the latter element had at least a hand in her decision to jump.  But Spike got to go down in flames for a world that had never loved him -- not because he wanted to escape it, but because it was the right thing to do.  That seems like a pretty effulgent ending for a character that Joss supposedly doesn't like and isn't all that interested in.  Not only did Spike get the big heroic death, he also got the most dramatic arc of any character on the show -- going from ineffectual man to seriously evil big bad to incapacitated big bad to genuine hero.  Again, do you write that much story for a character who you don't like or care about?

It may be that Joss thinks that Spike's story has been told and is ready to move on.  But I find it hard to believe that he made Spike so central to the story line from B5 on despite the fact that he didn't like or care about him.  And it's hard to believe that Mr. "give the fans what they need, not what they want" Whedon would have given over so much of the story to Spike just because the fans demanded it. 

Anyway, I thought I'd throw this out to the board to see what others might think!

See, in the interview, it seemed more like he was saying not that Joss didn't like the character, but that he wasn't actually interested in him. He also said the same thing about Angel. I think, that despite the fact that Joss did have the character do a lot of good, he didn't always do him justice. For instance: Seeing Red, Dead Things, well, lets just say most of season sixth with the exception of up to Tabula Rasa. Maybe he didn't like him as much as other characters, like Buffy and Xander and them, but I don't think he completly hated him.

It seemed to me that he got a little confused that everyone like the characters who were only supose to be on for a few episodes and then got larger parts because of fan reaction. I mean, Spike, Anya, Tara, Angel, Faith, they probably have more fans that the core scoobies did. I think some people might even like Illyria more that Fred and Cordelia and others in ATS. For him, the show was about a herione who faught the evil, and with the exception of Tara, everyone in that list I just wrote has been evil at one point. I think he got a little frustrated at the fact that fans liked the characters that didn't comply with his idea of what the show should be. Maybe that's why he had the story line of Willow trying to destroy the world in season six, so that fans would get more interested in the scoobies, instead of the other characters like Anya, Spike, Tara.

With those three, they got the worst end of the deal in their relationships, and he always tried to make fans feel more smypathy for the scoobies, who messed up their own relationships, and since fans didn't do that, he might have got a little distressed and started to dislike those characters a little bit, because it might seem like they were taking over the Buffy show.

And I think I might have gotten a little off the topic a little bit, sorry.

I don't recall ever reading that Joss didn't like Spike - if fact, I think I remember either he or James saying in an interview that there was a lot of Joss in Spike.  Certainly he put a lot of time and energy into developing the character from a cartoonish bad guy into a real person who moved people in many ways.  I agree that he wouldn't put that kind of effort into a character that he didn't like.  It's Joss - he would have just killed him off, fans or no fans. lol  

However, I can certainly easily imagine that once the show was finished for good, he would have lost interest in the character and/or in doing anything more with him (other than whatever was required for the comic books).  I suspect he is torn between his desire to give the fans what he wants them to want (or thinks they should have), and the desire to make money in his chosen profession (hence, the discussions about a Spike movie). 

By Season VI, Joss had pretty much turned things over to his producers and writers *cough, Marni/Marti Noxon, cough* so that he could concentrate on Angel and Firefly (That may even have begun in season V - but I would guess not as he wouldn't want anyone else ending "his" show.)  He came back for Season VII because he wanted to be the one to wrap it up (and, boy did his lack of attention show in Angel, Season IV!).  He's a brilliant man, but I doubt he is quite as wrapped up in his characters as their fans are.  I would imagine he is always looking ahead to the next story he wants to tell and perhaps is getting about tired of being asked about Spike and Angel.

I think Joss was probably annoyed that initially, his throw away "ultimate cool" evil a guy was a guy he couldn't kill... But you don't develop a character that much if you really hated him.  Unless he wanted to make Spike look lame or something as William, and having that backfire once again.

Anyway, after Buffy dies in s5, the show stops about her being the hero.  I mean, that's what it started out to be...but her "heroism" or whatever goes on a downward slide that never recovers, while Spike becomes better.  Spike becomes the hero.  The story lines twists and become more and more about him, and Willow (who takes a quick left to darkness, and finds redemption as well).

Someone in another thread mentioned how at the end credits (I think it was you, Maggie), no longer ended with the character of Buffy in s6 and s7, and that was hella interesting- particularly in the last season, where it ends with the first.  And "Chosen," well, Buffy is on the short list of folks who wasn't chosen in the end to do anything.  Sure, she has the scythe, but only because of Spike's encouragement, and no matter how many Slayers and bad ass wiccas she had backing her up, Spike is the one who closes the hellmouth, and saves the day.

*Pause*

Um yeah, a bit ranty at the end... But point is, Joss had Spike be the hero in the end, so he couldn't have hated him, IMHO.

I don't think anyone's ever said that Joss "hated" Spike - or even really disliked him, but I would definitely agree that Joss had a preference for his "core four" - Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles.

I think James has (rightly or not) gotten the impression that Joss didn't like Spike because whenever Joss wrote an episode, it always seemed to focus on one of those four, and Spike would have maybe one scene and then disappear for the rest of the episode. JM has said it became sort of a joke between them that Joss didn't want to work with him, but it seems like lately he's either being more honest or just seeing things differently upon reflection, and seeing it less as a joke and more as Joss really not being interested in the character. Also, I think James got a little bit annoyed at the direction his character went in season 4, and he felt like Joss was making Spike into a joke - but I think that went away by season 5 when he got a backstory and fell in love with Buffy.

As far as him being a disposable character that ended up sticking around, I do think it was partly because of fan reaction, but I think it also had to do with James being such a fantastic actor and really connecting with his costars. If he'd been mediocre, but the fans loved him, I doubt Joss would've kept him around. But in this case, he could give the fans what they wanted AND have a top-notch actor on his show, so he was okay with breaking his rule about "giving them what they need, not what they want."

if fact, I think I remember either he or James saying in an interview that there was a lot of Joss in Spike

I think there was a lot of James in Spike... or, more accurately, William. He was a "wuss" (James' word) and an outsider and insecure about himself, and hides his past with a cool exterior. Maybe Joss is like that, too, but I always thought Joss saw Xander as the character he was most like - the self-proclaimed geeky guy who ends up being best friends with the girl he'd rather be dating.

My point is: How can Joss dislike, or be annoyed by, whichever, a character that he created?  Unless Joss came to see "Spike" as sort of "The-Monster-That-Ate-My-Show-And-Changed-It-Into-Something-Else" kind of thing.  If that was the case, "Spike should have stayed dead-and Joss and Company would and should have had to deal with the viewer drop off "Angel" would have had because of it.

I think that Joss should be flattered that something, and "someone" he created is still "living" on, still being talked about, and loved, years later.

I think, even if Spike was "the monster that ate my show" on Buffy, that wouldn't have kept him from being on Angel. Buffy and Angel were two different shows, with two different themes, so even if Spike trampled all over the themes Joss set up for Buffy (which I'm not sure he did), he could still fit in on Angel, where the themes were actually tailored to the "vampire with a soul" point of view. I kind of remember (but I have no idea who said it) the notion that Spike actually fit in better on Angel than he ever did on Buffy. Giles' line "And yet, there is Spike..." seems to sum up his role on Buffy. He's always the exception to the rule, always the odd one out. But on Angel, he actually becomes one of the group, and I think his relationship with Angel actually illustrates the themes of that series really well (even if it sometimes does so by casting Angel in a bad light).

Spike was kinda forced on Joss to get Angel Season 5 renewal from the WB. The show *barely* got renewed for Season 5, and that was on a shoestring budget, and with the *big* condition that Spike/James had to be there to boost ratings. For Joss, who seems all about the "creative process", that really had to rankle that the network said "You WILL do this, or we walk".

James has said a few times more recently that Spike isn't a piece of Joss like the other characters were. Like, the William part is the only bit Joss would relate to, because Joss was never the cool guy. James also mentioned that our vampires ended up becoming bigger things than Buffy, so the monsters ended up taking away from the girl-power-rah-rah-heroine crap. The creations ran away, grew bigger than the creator. 

It's been clear enough since the show that ME really *wanted* the fans to be left with the thought in mind that the show was "all about Buffy". And yet, there are a significant number that are all about AtS, and/or Spike. We're not playing along, and anyone who *doesn't* think Joss is a control freak, is blind, so I don't think he likes that part, either. It's obvious they are all in/were in denial about a lot of the fandom not liking Buffy much at all by the end. Try asking them about making Buffy unlikeable - they avoid the question, or give you something totally Pollyanna different.

As for a creator coming to hate a creation, but still have to deal with it all the time? Prime example: every singer/band that's written a hit song that's *demanded* by fans, that they have to play it at every concert, or there will be a riot. You sing that damn song over and over and over, but you have to do justice to it still because the fans are happy with it, and they're paying your check. You aren't allowed to retire it, as much as you want to burn it and never hear mention of it again.

CM

Eowyn, It's not obvious to me that Joss avoided Spike in the episodes he wrote.  True, he never wrote one of the Spike-centric episodes.  But Spike was a key plot element in Becoming and the Gift.  And The Chosen really is centered on him in many ways.  Indeed, while the title "The Chosen" has multiple meanings, one of the important ones is Spike, who was chosen by Buffy (over Angel) at the beginning of the episode.

CM, It's not obvious to me that Joss intended for us to come away from The Chosen thinking it was all about Buffy.  Compare it to the Gift.  In the gift we open with a shot of nostalgia about Buffy's calling, get the glorious swan dive with the big music, and close on her tombstone.  *That's* all about Buffy.  But as Scarlet points out seasons 6 and 7 don't focus on Buffy in the same way.  She doesn't save the world in season 6, and turns out to be only a supporting player in season 7.  The episode The Chosen focuses on Spike in important ways.  I've already mentioned the title.  The opening scene raises the last big question for Spike -- which is whether he will still play the hero after seeing Buffy in the infamous snog with Angel.  He passes that test with flying colors.  Buffy chooses Spike, not Angel, to be her champion.  The slayers might have held off the uebervamps, but if Spike weren't there to burst into vamp-cleansing glory they would clearly have been defeated.  The world-saving glory is specifically connected to the soul which epitomizes the very long journey Spike had been on (the acquisition of which, incidentally, was chosen for the closing shot in season 6).  It's his whole story that saves the world.  Buffy's last word is Spike, and Spike's trademark (knocking over the Welcome to Sunnydale sign) punctuates the collapsing of the hellmouth.  It's not all about Spike the way the Gift was all about Buffy, but it's much more about Spike than it is about Buffy.  And Joss wrote the episode.

It's true that the surviving cast (excepting Buffy) isn't shown as even noticing what Spike has done -- but since all the content is about Spike, I think that's just another way of underscoring Spike's hugely heroic death.  It's cool to be a hero when you are surrounded by friends who love you and who routinely acknowledge that you are a hero.  It's that much cooler to be a hero when noone around you gives a damn. 

Maybe Joss really thought it was all about the girl-power.  But that isn't the script he wrote. 

It's not obvious to me that Joss avoided Spike in the episodes he wrote.

Well, James said it, I just repeated it. :) When asked who his favorite director was, besides Joss: "I was going to name him, yeah. Except whenever he writes a script, Spike has like five lines. And I used to think he didn’t like me [laughs]. I was like, ‘Joss, some day we’ll work together. Maybe after we get off this TV show we can work together.’"

And then, in talking about The Body: "[Joss] showed me the script and he's like, 'I know we talk about how I never direct you. Here's my next directing script.'" James goes on to say Spike totally didn't belong in that episode, but still, the indication is there that Joss sort of neglects Spike, and that he and James have talked about it.

I dunno... In Ats5, on the commentary of the first episode, he talks about how he was upset how he didn't get to work with James then, because Spike doesn't show up until the last five seconds of the episode.  But they work together in "A Whole in the World," which has a lot of Spike time, and some other eps I'm sure.

"Chosen" totally ended up being about Spike, and girls shouldn't need super powers to empower themselves anyway.  Anya's the one who points that out- the Slayers don't work for their strength.  Willow did, though... That was encouraging.

I have to think that bit about Joss not writing for him is a bit of a joke -- it's just not empirically true! 

Scarlet -- good point about "A Hole in the World" ... in the commentary on the opening scene (cavemen vs. astronauts) Joss has lots of good things to say about James as an actor, if I recall.  And he gives Spike the killer line/moment in the episode ("There's a hole in the world.  Feels like we ought to have known.") 

Yeah, and Joss says (somewhere) that James really blew him away with his chops and whatnot, especially since he was a theatre actor (which probably made him better).

I didn't mention "Chosen", I mentioned the series. Everything Joss says in retrospect has been all about Buffy. She's his "baby girl", and I don't think he *liked* that she ended up upstaged.......it's just how the show went. It explains some of the retconning he's been doing in the comics - he wants the spotlight back on Buffy and the original Scoobies.

As far as how Joss approached writing "Chosen", he said to James "I don't know what we're going to do with you, but I know Spike's going to die." And James has said repeatedly how he didn't expect Spike to do much in "Chosen" except die. I think Spike confounds Joss, because he's not a character that Joss sets out to write ahead of time. Wes' arc is amazing, too, paralleling Spike's, and the majority of that wasn't written by Joss, either. Spike ended up a hero, whereas Joss likes *anti* heroes. It was a clear message on BTVS that cool=bad, yet probably because of James' portrayal, Spike never completely lost the "this character rocks" angle.

And Joss admiring James as an actor has nothing to do with how he feels about the *character*, and it was the character that James brought up in the first place.

CM

But the Chosen is the final word, and if the Chosen is in important ways about Spike, then it implies that Spike really is central to the series.  You may be right that this is something that got away from Joss -- but it's hard for me to understand how he could have lost his grip of the series in such a profound way.  Especially since it was his choice to have Spike be the one who died to save the world.  And his choice to structure the episode in such a way that there could be no doubt that the death was purely self-sacrificial in a way that even Buffy's was not.  I suppose we could argue that Joss really did think he was writing about Buffy and just didn't execute it very well.

I agree that he does seem to want to bring things back to Buffy in the comics.  We'll see how that goes.  So far it's not so interesting.

Agree that the issue is whether Joss likes the character.  That Spike gets significant attention in A Hole in the World suggests that he is not uninteresting to Joss.  There's actually a pretty major development in the episode with Spike exercising a kind of wisdom that escapes Angel. 

So I'm just not sure what JM is talking about.  Perhaps it's a feeling that Joss is done with the character of Spike -- and that could well be the case.  Spike has been moved into the space of being pretty morally unambiguous.  In A5 we are presented with scenarios in which Spike could go bad, but he's not remotely tempted (in contrast to Angel, who has on-going temptation issues).  The remaining issues for Spike have to do with him getting a clearer picture of Angel, and a greater sense of his own direction.  Those issues are perhaps not so gripping for Joss as the huge issue of whether an evil vampire, who is (coolness not withstanding) the ultimate outsider, could nonetheless be redeemed.  One could not understand Buffy from season 5 on without being deeply engaged with the big Spike issues.  That leads me to say that if Joss had *any* hand at all in the series those last three years, he had to be interested in Spike.

Okay, bottom line: If the creator of a show wants his hero or heroine to be the focus, the trick is to make them interesting.  If you want the audience to see your "bad guy" as "tie-to-the-train-tracks" bad, and you don't want the bad guy to outshine the good guys, you don't sign off on a compelling backstory for them!

Because, let's face it, Mr. Marsters can emote more with a raised eyebrow, than some can in their entire body.  Even if he was given bad scripts, bad lines, etcetera, he'd find a way to make us watch him and no one else.

Oh, does he! I've watched James in all kinds of stuff, now, and he is always compelling.

CM

True even incredible crap like The Mountain was riveting while he was on the screen (even the boy playing his son looked good too!...Quite a feat).

I think Joss is ALL about the whole "girl power" myth he thinks he created (I've written lots of times on my LJ about how NOT girl power I think it turned out) and just isn't with the rest.  He has a sort of Council view of things....human  (soul) = mostly good with the odd bad guy and demon (unsouled) = evil or comic relief.  They have said they gave Spike the soul because it was the only way they could write him as a good guy...without the soul he was supposed to be evil (as they tried to remind us over and over). Joss seems to have a very different view of what he created.

I think it has already been said best that the creation took on a life of its own and that is what joss doesn't get.  He's writing his version in the comics and we take the ball and run with what came across...all that ambiguity and all those layers! 

JM made Spike more than the words in the script.  Their decision to use Harmony for comic relief on Angel added to the whole "Not all vampires are murderous animals only" vibe that went against their real agenda......after the geni was out they weren't sure what to do!  I think that's why Joss wrote little for Spike.  He wasn't sure how to approach the character based on what he had intended vs. what took life so he just let the others do that and green lighted the stories.  I think he was uncomfortable with how popular his gray characters were actually.

Kathleen

BTW there was a discussion with some people on LJ that James was being a drama queen with thi interview playing for sympathy but I didn't get that vibe at all.  I think he is just candid in his responses and no longer having to not say things he feels and means because the likelihood of actually having Spike return to film again is slim.

You summed everything up perfectly, Kathleen. And you're right, that's not James' style - he's just honest. It's especially clear when you can hear him, not just read his words.

*kim

I have to think that bit about Joss not writing for him is a bit of a joke -- it's just not empirically true! 

Well, if you read what I wrote, I said in my first post that James and/or Joss joked about the situation. But I think the fact that there were comments (even joking ones) indicates that there was some truth to it. Why would James say (even joking) that Spike usually had five lines in a Joss-penned script if he actually had a big role? Why would Joss say, "I know we talk about how I never direct you" if it wasn't true? Again, I don't think this indicates that Joss disliked James or Spike, but I do think it shows that Joss had a preference for his four original characters, and I think it's worth considering that maybe James has a reason why he says what he does (as recently as the EW article last week) and for thinking what he does about Joss.

As for empirical evidence, well... ask, and you shall receive. Here's a detailed look at all the episodes Joss has written and/or directed. I only focused on Buffy, not Spike's season on Angel because: 1. I have other things to do with my life; 2. I didn't have a list of written/directed by credits for Angel handy; 3. the ensemble dynamic on Angel was very different from that on Buffy, and so the same patterns don't necessarily apply; and 4. James' comments were mainly made during seasons 4/5 of Buffy, so there's no indication he still felt that way on Angel.

Anyway...

Season 1: Obviously, Spike wasn't in this season, but for frame of reference, Joss wrote and/or directed 5 out of 12 episodes.

Season 2:
- When She Was Bad: Spike does not appear.
- School Hard: Introduction of Spike, so obviously a significant role.
- Lie to Me: Spike plays a role approximately equal to the other Scoobies.
- Ted: Spike does not appear.
- Innocence: Spike appears in 4 scenes, relatively background character.
- Becoming I: Spike has a total of 8 lines.
- Becoming II: Spike plays a role approximately equal to the other Scoobies.

Season 3: Although Spike is not a recurring character in this season, I'll note that Joss wrote and/or directed 5 episodes, which did not include Spike's episode, Lover's Walk.

Season 4:
- The Freshman: Spike does not appear.
- Hush: Well, not sure it's worth counting lines on this one, lol... Spike appears in 4 scenes, mostly making faces and obscene gestures. :)
- Who Are You: Spike appears in one scene, with a total of 8 lines.
- Restless: Spike appears in two scenes, with a total of 8 lines.

Season 5:
- Family: Spike appears in 3 scenes, with about 14 lines.
- The Body: Spike does not appear.
- The Gift: Spike plays a role approximately equal to the other Scoobies.

Season 6:
- Once More With Feeling: Spike plays a role approximately equal to the other Scoobies.

Season 7:
- Lessons: Spike appears in 3 scenes, with a total of 9 lines.
- Chosen: Spike plays a significant role.

So, of the seasons Spike was on the show (2,4-7), Joss wrote and/or directed 4 episodes in which Spike does not appear at all, 4 episodes with less than ten lines (what I would consider a tiny role, about one step above being ignored), 3 episodes with more than 10 lines, but still less screen time than the Scoobies, and 6 episodes where he is equal to the Scoobies. (My "equal to the Scoobies" judgment came from the fact that, as a recurring character and then series regular, he should get screen time approximately equal to others in that same position.)

I think the comments about Joss working with him came mainly from season 4 (although he did just say the thing about only having five lines in the recent EW interview), when Spike was made a regular, and yet not given much to do in Joss' episodes. I realize that not every episode is going to have a large role for every character, but the fact that James mentions it makes it seem like it was noticeable to him.

I'm sure Joss didn't do it deliberately, but maybe James knows what he's talking about when he says Joss "never really got into him" and that Spike didn't "spark his imagination." You can argue that's not true, since Joss apparently cared enough to give Spike the soul/redemption character arc, but at that point in the series, it's hard to tell how much was Joss and how much was Marti Noxon, David Fury, and the others who stepped in while Joss was doing his other projects. Or, alternatively, it's possible that Joss really wasn't inspired by Spike in seasons 4/5, and didn't really know what to do with him until they came up with the redemption arc, which is what led to Spike getting more to do later in the series. 

BTW there was a discussion with some people on LJ that James was being a drama queen with thi interview playing for sympathy but I didn't get that vibe at all.

I didn't see him as playing for sympathy either, Kathleen. I saw a discussion in another forum about how James came off really insecure in the interview - mentioning his age repeatedly, and talking about how the people he's worked with lately were so much better than him. Personally, all I could think about was how unprepared the interviewer seemed.

Anyone got a link to this interview with JM? I'd like to see it, please.

Here's the link. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20053152,00.html

I'd like to see Spike's line count v. Anya, cause IMO, he was more of an important character than her.  If Anya has more lines/screen time than Spike in Joss episodes, I think that would give everyone a definite answer.

I recall Joss saying (in a commentary on s4, I think) that Spike, at the point of s4, was the "wacky neighbor," and he in particular wasn't sure what to do with him.  When he realized he was in love with Buffy, things became easier for him to write with Spike in it.  At any rate, I'm just glad that some of the better Spike eps were not written by Joss.

And thanks, guest!

Hey Eowyn,

For what it's worth, the relevant comparison is how much Spike appears in Joss episodes as compared to non-Joss episodes -- not how much Spike appears in Joss episodes as compared to other characters.  It's true that Joss didn't happen to write the Spike centric episodes (Lover's Walk, Fool for Love, Crush, Lies My Parents Told Me).  But there were tons of non-Joss penned episodes in which Spike gets only a scene or two.  I'd say the pattern with Joss episodes is about the same as the non-Spike-centric non-Joss-penned episodes.

Maggie - since the comment that sparked this was James talking about how much he worked with Joss, I don't think comparing it with non-Joss episodes makes any difference. James isn't saying that other writers/directors gave him *more* screen time than Joss. I'm sure some of them did (Jane Espenson, Doug Petrie), but I'm equally sure there are some writers/directors he never worked with at all. All James is commenting on is how little he worked with Joss, despite their being on the same show. My comparison with other characters was simply to determine whether James was getting an "appropriate" amount of scenes for his status as a regular in those episodes. I mean, who's to say how many lines constitutes a decent role in an episode? How many scenes? So, basically, if he was getting the same amount of work as everyone else, I figured it wasn't an episode that prompted the "I only got five lines" comments.

Also, there's no way I'm going through all 97 of Spike's episodes, or however many there are, and counting his lines to compare Joss episodes to non-Joss episodes. :-P And I'm not counting Anya's lines either, Scarlet, but you're welcome to do it, lol. 

The point, I think, is that Joss knew what to do with Spike as a villain - he wrote 3 great episodes for him in season 2. Then, they brought Spike back in season 4, and he wasn't really evil, but he wasn't really good, and he didn't fit in the role they intended for him (the new Cordelia), so Joss (and others, IMO) pushed Spike to the background in their scripts because they didn't really have anything for him to do. And it seems like James noticed. Then, they decided to go all  the way with making Spike "good," and then they knew what to do with him again.

The interesting thing to me is that, years later, James is still saying Joss wrote episodes where he only had five lines, even though we can see that wasn't *always* true, and saying it in the context of "he wasn't really interested in Spike." That makes me wonder if there's more that went on behind the scenes that we don't realize - perhaps reflecting an attitude toward Spike that was evident to the cast, but not to the public, or even Joss' lack of interest in the Spike movie?

Spike's position as an outsider dictates that he wouldn't tend to get as much screen time as the insiders.  That's why it's not surprising that there are many episodes (some penned by Joss) in which Spike doesn't appear as much as Willow or Xander.  Doesn't make him an unimportant/uninteresting charactrer, either.  Snape doesn't get all that many pages in the Harry Potter books, but he's darned important, and Rowling frequently singles him out as a favorite character to write.

Agree that they didn't have much role to give Spike in season 4 (past the key establishing episodes of Harsh Light of Day, The Initiative, Pangs and Something Blue).  That might be because of the ill-conceived idea of having Spike take up the void left by Cordelia (assuming that was really their original intent in bringing him back).  Or because they just needed to have a period of in-between status for Spike, with correspondingly little to do, before moving to the big arc of his redemption. 

The remarks of former cast members and/or Joss are often so internally contradictory and/or obviously off the mark I tend not to put much weight on them.  And it's pointless to speculate whether such remarks reflect behind the scenes stuff, or just certain whimsical ways of saying things, or whatever. 

I thought they brought back Anya to take Cordelia's place?

Well, I've been thinking that it's mighty interesting was that the whole point of "Lover's Walk"  was to see how Spike would be able to interact with the main characters of the show, and if it worked, he'd be brought in for s4.  In LW, he spent most of his screen time with Willow, Buffy, and Angel (who was off on his own show), and yet in s4, the most we see of him is when he's either with Giles or Xander, and of course the Scoobies as a whole.  But because he seemed to get along so well with Willow, and she's in most of the integral scenes, it's a wonder they didn't have Spike there more, since those two seemed to mesh.  And since this is pre "Oh, Spike's in love with Buffy," it also makes me wonder why those two didn't get together, even if it was briefly...

At any rate, if one is to have a "wacky neighbor," they should have more screen time and lines so that we can see them actually being the wacky neighbor.  Meaning, I'm not so sure about Joss' "Spike's the wacky neighbor" bit, cause then we could've seen more of him.  We saw a lot of Cordelia in s2 and particularly s3...

And yeah, Anya makes more sense for the Cordelia replacement, but really either could fit the bill.

I remember the time Joss called him the wacky neighbor, but he never seemed like the wacky neighbor to me. 'He was sort of the wacky neighbor, hi can I borrow a cup of sugar and insult you.' But he doesn't seem like all the other wacky neighbor's in the show, where they are always in the main characters home and at least in half of the episodes. Or maybe I'm just thinking sitcoms.  

Anyway, before Spike started to love Buffy, I use to wonder why the didn't have him and Willow hook up, because Willow seemed to be the one that got along with and understood him the most. But than, Joss had intended from season one for one of his main characters to be gay, though I'd like to stress that Willow is *bi*, and I think because they brought in Anya as Cordelia's replacement and she was Xander's date to the prom, it was going to be Willow. Course, the could have made up a new male character for Xander to go with, brought Anya back to end up with Giles, and had Willow and Spike start something. But I like Tara and Spuffy to much to wonder if they could have made that work.

Anya, in my opinion, makes more sense with Giles than Xander to me.  However, this isn't to say I wanted Xander to be gay (though in certain instances, I could so see it.  Remember his lovely description of Spike? Dark and mysterious, compact yet well muscled), but Willow and Spike just made sense.  She was always sympathetic to him, wanted to save him from himself... And Willow is so William as a woman.  It just would've been interesting to see, is all...

Anya always made more sense with Giles to me to. She needed someone more mature than Xander. She was a woman far older than any of them, and yet Xander and by default the other scoobies treated her as if she was a moron. Plus, I doubt Giles would have left her at the altar and than had the audacity to assume they could get back together.

And I think Willow and Spike would have made an interesting couple, because they're so alike. Spike is an inner geek with a dark exterior, and Willow's got an inner dark streak with a geeky exterior. And they did understand each other, like in the episode where she tells him not to do anything *something about Buffy*, repeating unknowingly when he told Buffy that he'd hurt whoever harmed the person he loved, when Willow went after Glory for hurting Tara and Buffy thought a talk would calm Willow down. They would have been a cute couple, but I still can't help my love of Spuffy.