Okay, I’ve sorta noticed something about the drooling Spike obsessors and I want to know if my theory is true or it’s just some logic that doesn’t resemble our earth logic. So, uh, Spike fanboys and gals, when did you start watching Buffy religiously (and is there any other way to watch Buffy?)? I ask because I noticed the trend that Peroxided One’s worshippers tend to have found Buffy around or after Season Four after Spike was chipped. Personally, I liked the evil Spike from Seasons Two and Three, but I started watching Buffy around the time of Invisible Girl in Season One. Maybe, I thought, that’s why I find that Spike was much more interesting in School Hard than in, say, The Weight of the World or Dead Things. Now, I know pepperlandgirl has to be difficult and defy my theory, but I’m wondering if it holds up among the rest of the Spikefan population…
Season One. Episode One.
Liked Spike from the start, still love him.
I started with season one, episode three (“The Witch”) and have watched on and off since then. I pretty much loved Spike from the beginning. However, my periods of absolutely, totally, completely loving him were as follows:
Season 2.
Season Five episode “Crush” through Season Six episode “After Life”.
During the first…well, I liked the bad-ass, punk, kill things Spike.
As for the second, I also liked when he was working with Buffy, as opposed to totally kissing her ass all the time/shagging her. The dynamic was much more interesting, and he was less pathetic.
Started watching the very first episode.
Always, always loved Spike. Any Spike. All Spike. Evil Spike, Chipped Spike, Pathetic Spike, Sort-of-Good Spike, Crazy Spike.
Ummm…
yeah.
I started watching from the beginning–butit was last December. A friend let me borrow his tapes. When he killed the annoying one and then said “lets see what’s on tv.” I fell in love. Like arisu, I love every and all Spikes. Evil, good, pathetic, naked, dressed, naked, naked…oops getting a little carried away. 
I think JM is a good enough actor that he can pull off whatever Spike Spike i supposed to be.
It thrilled me in that in Beneath You he was at least every Spike once.
Um…I’m a guy, I don’t particularly find Spike attractive (from a ragingly hetero-standpoint), my Fiance’ on the other hand finds him GGTW. She can’t get enough of him, which is fine; although there are times when it gets a bit hampersome (my newly made up word), such as when I’m begged to bleach my hair, dress like him, and so on. Which I find a little amusing, partly because, if I did actually dress up that way, I would look totally ridiculous. As though Spike, instead of going to find his soul, had instead turned to buffets to ease his pain. Gorging himself on Chinese food buffets until he split at the seems (ok, I ain’t THAT heavy).
In any event, she started lusting after Spike after Angel got his own show. Angel (while on Buffy) was her drool-king. Once he left, she felt that he changed (or something, you know how you women are…) and started in on Spike. Or as she calls him “Spikers”.
Incidently, when he’s been in other movies (house on haunted hill) or television shows (that one on VH1 with the guy from the “who”) she hasn’t cared for him as much…
It’s all about the character, not the actor! I don’t watch Buffy, though I have a little in the past, and I have always found Spike attractive as well, but its more the bad-ass attitude than for his looks. The actor is a good looking guy, but not THAT great. Sort of like my obsession with Legolas in LoTR - I don’t particularly care for Orlando Bloom, but that long hair, and the bow…mmmmmmm 
I have been a Spike fan since the first episode. It’s something about his swagger, his lips, his hair, his accent…oooh…
For the record, I too am also obsessed with Legolas and that makes my husband’s repeated viewings of the LOTR DVD much easier to deal with.
I’ve been watching since the very beginning and I’ve loved the Spike character since he first showed up. First I was all about his evil coolness, then his chipped vulnerability/swagger combo endeared him to me, and by the time he was really sweet on Buffy, the character had my complete and total attention and sympathy.
I admit that my raging crush on James Marsters might be bolstering my like for Spike, but even if he were played by someone I weren’t attracted to, I’d still think he was a great character. Watching him struggle with his changing self over the seasons is what makes him so great; the abs and the cheekbones are just icing.
Um, I started watching BtVS off and on probably about last March, in reruns on FX. Whether I tuned in or not depended on how many times I’d seen the Star Trek episode that SciFi was showing that night. The first episode I saw with Spike in it was the one with the Judge (can’t remember title), which would have been Wheelchair-Bound Spike (which he was not in “Beneath You”, pepperlandgirl. FX was pretty well into S3 by the time I started watching the show regularly, so I only saw, maybe three episodes of pre-chip Spike. The first UPN episode I saw was “Seeing Red”, on its first run, so basically during the summer, I was watching S4&5, and I think I fell in love with Spike about the time Spike fell in love with Buffy, series chronology-wise.
Anyhoo, by the time I saw “School Hard” for the first time, I had already seen almost all of S4 and S5 (FX skips episodes when they rerun them) and a few episodes of S6, and knowing Spike was going to end up in love, and in bed (yes, in “Gone”, they actually hit the bed) with Buffy made Evil Spike just that much more delicious.
So, even though technically I did see some pre-chip Spike, you could pretty much say I picked up in S4, so most of my early Spike experience was chipped Spike.
And why does it seem like Spuffy sex almost always has to involve major property damage?
Yeah, James Marsters doesn’t do much for me. When I see him in other things or pictures at conventions or whatever, I just don’t feel anything. He’s a great guy from what I hear, and obviously he’s good looking, and an amazing actor, but I love Spike.
I had caught one or two episodes (the hansel and gretl & “The Body”) during their original runs - but I started watching when FOX began at the beginning last year and didn’t watch on UPN until I had seen all of seasons 1-5.
So, from season 1, episode 1 - just a few years late.
Two persons with superhuman strength for one of whom the only real aspect to their relationship is wild, animalistic sex with one of the few beings in the world who could possibly hurt her…
Hmm… Nope, no idea why there’d be major property damage.
I started watching Buffy recently when a friend loaned me Seasons 1 & 2 on DVD. Like pepperlandgirl “[w]hen he killed the annoying one and then said ‘lets see what’s on tv,’ I fell in love.”
I started watching Buffy about halfway through season one. I really liked Spike throughout season two. When he came back for good in season four was when I started to dislike him. I had really enjoyed him as a villain before and now he was a complete buffoon being played strictly for laughs. I didn’t like him with the chip and I’ve grown to like him less and less. I wish they would put the character out of his misery and stake him already. He started out as a great villain, a serious threat, and for over two seasons now he’s been a miserable, pathetic worm, puppydogging over Buffy even worse than Xander ever did.
Am I the only one who’s tired of him? I know this is a thread for those who like Spike, and believe me, I used to. He pretty much MADE season two for me. The scene when he got up out of the wheelchair was great. That’s why I hate to see him beaing treated so shabbily. I suppose for a lot of people there’s appeal in the whole “tamed the wild beast” thing, but for me we’ve ruined a great villain and never really got much in return for it.
Devoted Spikophile here.
I started watching Buffy when FX first started running it last September. I was exposed to Spike first on Season 6, though, because I started watching Season 6 concurrent with the FX eps.
So when I met him, he was already in love with Buffy, and I was in love with the show.
Hmmm.
I’ve been thinking, in discussions about Buffy’s love/sex/whatever interests, people usually think in terms of Spike vs. Angel as opposites. There is some validity in this now that Spike has his soul back, because Angel was the vamp who lost his soul because of his love for Buffy, and Spke got his soul back because of his love for Buffy.
But if you are really looking for opposites, Spike vs. Riley. Spike has always been attracted to strong women, and has no problem with a woman who is stronger than he is- take Dru, for instance. Before that angry mob in Prague thing. Or after she was cured. Maybe not a physical match for Spike, but being psychic definitely gave her an edge.She was an extremely strong-willed woman, used to getting what she wanted, up to and including the means to destroy the world. And the way he (mis)treated Harmony before he was chipped. Hopeless romantic that he is, he couldn’t stand to be alone, so he shacked up with a silly bint who couldn’t even take Xander in a fight. He was much kinder to her when she moved back in with him in S5, after he had been defanged. Then one fine day, he realizes he is in love with the Slayer. His mortal enemy, who has been beating him up on a regular basis for the past year. Unable to fight her because of the chip, she becomes his romantic obsession. He starts to become un-evil (although he never quite made it to “good”, we’ll see if he gets there now that he has his soul back. In D & D terms, I would put him as chaotic neutral leaning toward good by the time Buffy and Co. realize that Glory is a serious threat).
Riley, on the other hand, well… I think he can handle a strong woman only if she isn’t stronger than he is. In “The Freshman”, he and Buffy have a “meet cute”. He starts to develop feelings for her when, due to the fact that the college scene is a rough adjustment for her, she comes off as clutzy and ditzy. By the time he finds out she is the Slayer, he is already besottedly in love with her. Due to the fact that Maggie Walsh has been feeding him strange chemicals, he has superhuman strength, so he is probably more than a physical match for her. And the relationship starts to unravel when? After the Big Battle, after he is no longer being fed drugs by the Initiative, when he starts to lose his “superpowers”, and realizes that Buffy is stronger than him physically and emotionally. And he finally gives her the ultimatum (and ultimately dumps her- did anybody besides me notice that when he was standing on the helipad “waiting” to see if Buffy would come after him, he was not watching the possible avenues of approach?) And he leaves Buffy after Spike confesses to him that he is in love with the Buffstress? (I think that scene in the crypt was very touching- probably near the top of my list of Spike scenes, if I were to ever compile one).
OK, hijack’s over.
Legomancer, I think Spike being effectively defenseless against humans gave him a certain charm. I’m wondering if it isn’t so much Spike you’re tired of as the abuse he’s been getting from Buffy and the Scoobies for the past three seasons. I mean, OK, in S4 he kind of had it coming to him, but by the middle of S5, he was firmly on the side of good and righteousness, and even after being tortured by Glory, Buffy was the only one who cut him any slack, and then not much.
And as far as ruining a great villian and not getting much in return, well…
There’s this whole redemption theme that’s been working through the past three seasons. Joss has been working toward it slowly, actually, now that I think about it, too slowly. But if after being chipped, Spike suddenly turned into a good guy, it would not have been a believable character development. So he had to go through the whole loss of the Big Bad identity thing in S4, Love’s Bitch in S5, and, the pathetic puppydog of S6. Then that horrible scene in the bathroom… (and how come the Anti-Forgiveness League doesn’t seem to have a problem with the vicious beating Buffy gave Spike in “Dead Things”?)
'Course, if you’re one of those people who really digs a great villian… S2 Spike just can’t be beat. Well, maybe if your mom shows up with a fire axe…
Legomancer without going into great details (Please only read this if you really don’t mind reading spoilers.)
You may get evil!Spike back this season
No, I’m sick of Spike himself. I don’t think the character is half as interesting now as people seem to believe he is. There’s no decent reason, other than fear of fan outrage, why he survived Season 4. He was evil, he helped Adam, he was only held in check by the chip, and he was going to do what it took to get it out - he stated all this - and yet Buffy let him live. No reason.
He was a good villain. Like so many unfortunate cases, people liked him so much as a villain, they decided to make him a good guy. And what did we get? We wasted a good villian and in return got a pathetic half-hero.
I realize the womenfolk love him. As I said before, he plays right into a “taming the wild beast” fantasy. I would have much preferred him as a bad guy - even with the chip, trying to circumvent it. I would have liked to see him become a sort of Jabba the Hutt, unable to harm the gang himself, but masterminding the plans and getting others to do the work. What I didn’t want to see was him mooning over Buffy.
But I am clearly in the minority these days, where Spike can do no wrong. I think his “redemption” has made him a far less interesting character than he was before. We already had one guy following Buffy around like a puppydog - we didn’t seend to cash in a good bad guy to get another one.
A wizard song for thee, I want you to go back and reread your thread title.
Actually, that was what I was thinking.
[sub]Spike on Buffy.[/sub]