Buffy: James Marsters Would Have Killed Spike Earlier (And For A Pretty Good Reason)
Now a couple of decades removed from its pulse-pounding series finale, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" continues to boast arguably as strong a fanbase as the cult-hit series did when it was on the air. When the show debuted on The WB in the late '90s it was the very definition of appointment television for certain portions of the teen audience, who tuned in weekly to see what monstrous adventures Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and her "Scooby Gang" pals would get into.
For the bulk of that run, Buffy's one-time enemy, and eventual steadfast ally Spike was a regular part of the action, with the platinum blonde bad boy — portrayed by James Marsters over 97 episodes — becoming a legitimate series favorite among "Buffy" super fans. But as Marsters recently admitted, if he'd been in charge of the series himself, Spike wouldn't have made it more than a few episodes.
The actor made that assertion to RadioTimes.com, telling the outlet in no uncertain terms, "If it had been me producing that show, I would have killed Spike off in a heartbeat." And his reasoning behind that logic is that Spike was ultimately a big-time vampire baddie, and fans weren't supposed to like him so much. As Marsters stated, he would've started to re-think Spike's arc, "As soon as the audience said, 'Oh, we want him. Oh, have him with Buffy. Oh, we love that character.'" More specifically, Marsters even claimed he would've killed the character off after just three episodes.
Marsters believed Buffy writers always had issues working him into the narrative
As James Marsters jokingly told RadioTimes.com, he owes a lot to the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" creative team. And as for his assertion that Spike was not meant to be so adored, Marsters claimed of the vampire characters on the show, "'Buffy' is not an Anne Rice kind of thing, where you're supposed to feel for the vampires."
Marsters has also been quite open about how Spike's popularity affected "Buffy" mastermind Joss Whedon. But aside from that alleged altercation, the actor went on to say how impressed he was that they always managed to crack the narrative with Spike. "[The writers] were always 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,'" Marsters said. "And because they were so creative, they were able to figure something out."
Despite the creative team's best efforts, however, Marsters said he still always feel like Spike was a last-minute addition to many of the series' storylines. And if that is the case, an additional hat-tip is clearly due to the already celebrated writing team of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."