Which teen/YA shows from over the past 20+ years would/won't hold up today?

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Then again with Spike when Joyce died he did miss her and the flowers had no card so they weren't an attempt to have sex with Buffy, as for getting his soul only to get Buffy back, I think that was part of it but not all of it, perhaps he did it partially to prove that Buffy was wrong about him and all of that...and if Spike is a bastard then what does that make Angel...he's no choir boy after all...

Not to mention the bits with Glory where she tortured him but Spike never gave up Buffy's secrets and then later on when he thought that he was with the robot he again protected her, point being that for both of those times Buffy would more than likely never have known what he'd done for her...and Spike tried to help Dawn out when she found out the truth, yeah he didn't do it well but still...

[Valentis]

Then again with Spike when Joyce died he did miss her and the flowers had no card so they weren't an attempt to have sex with Buffy, as for getting his soul only to get Buffy back, I think that was part of it but not all of it, perhaps he did it partially to prove that Buffy was wrong about him and all of that...and if Spike is a bastard then what does that make Angel...he's no choir boy after all...

Not to mention the bits with Glory where she tortured him but Spike never gave up Buffy's secrets and then later on when he thought that he was with the robot he again protected her, point being that for both of those times Buffy would more than likely never have known what he'd done for her...and Spike tried to help Dawn out when she found out the truth, yeah he didn't do it well but still...

Spike is two characters. The character we first meet in season 2 is not the same character we see towards the end of season 2 and beyond. Spike is as bad as Angelus. Angel confirms it in our first introduction to Spike. What went wrong was the character's increasing popularity among viewers. When the writers discovered how popular the character became , they rewrote and changed the entire character. The writers had to make him a good guy without explaining good vampires.

The Buffy lore of good and evil demons that was used with Angel and other demons was thrown out for Spike .Angel is the better character of the two in writing. He was a well planned and executed character that was consistent with the Buffyverse. Spike is an anomaly thanks to external forces.

[SiegePerilous02]

Spike is two characters. The character we first meet in season 2 is not the same character we see towards the end of season 2 and beyond. Spike is as bad as Angelus. Angel confirms it in our first introduction to Spike. What went wrong was the character's increasing popularity among viewers. When the writers discovered how popular the character became , they rewrote and changed the entire character. The writers had to make him a good guy without explaining good vampires.

The Buffy lore of good and evil demons that was used with Angel and other demons was thrown out for Spike .Angel is the better character of the two in writing. He was a well planned and executed character that was consistent with the Buffyverse. Spike is an anomaly thanks to external forces.

Spike is both weirdly consistent as a character and inconsistent, because the intent of the writing staff (who all had divided opinions on him) are all over the place. He's an egotistical incel jerk as a human and that template went over to his demon which gave him power. He obsessively worshiped and wanted mommy and Drusilla near him at all times but reacted violently towards them when they stopped behaving like he wanted them to (staking is vampire mother, tortured Dru until she liked him again and nearly killed her to appease Buffy. And sublimated his lust towards Slayers into violence; he obsessively stalked them and killed them, and confirmed after his first night with Buffy that he always wanted to bang a Slayer. He fought for a soul because he wanted a grand sweeping romantic gesture to get Buffy back (and control her) and because he's a rebel, so of course he's going to go against the grain even without 100% understanding what he's getting himself into. The weight of the soul is too painful, so he retreats into his fake "Spike" persona again very quickly when Buffy prods him in that direction to feel powerful again. He's depicted as either blatantly not caring about his past victims or in such denial that he's putting on a convincing front. If you look at Spike as being pathetic and full of false bravado, his arc makes sense as far as he goes*. It's when the writers and fandom try to convince us that he's great and better than the likes of Angel or even Faith**, that I have to call BS. A more convincing end to his arc would be for him to take Caleb's place in season 7 as the First's muscle

We also have Harmony, who is FAR nicer and capable of self control than Spike without a chip in her head, and she never gets any credit. Because the writers remain consistent with demon lore with her. Despite how nice she can be she is still evil and that's why she betrays Team Angel in the finale.


*still makes no sense why Buffy doesn't stake him all throughout season 4-5
**"I reformed way before you did" he says to her. Um...no?

[Powerboy]

Spike is both weirdly consistent as a character and inconsistent, because the intent of the writing staff (who all had divided opinions on him) are all over the place. He's an egotistical incel jerk as a human and that template went over to his demon which gave him power. He obsessively worshiped and wanted mommy and Drusilla near him at all times but reacted violently towards them when they stopped behaving like he wanted them to (staking is vampire mother, tortured Dru until she liked him again and nearly killed her to appease Buffy. And sublimated his lust towards Slayers into violence; he obsessively stalked them and killed them, and confirmed after his first night with Buffy that he always wanted to bang a Slayer. He fought for a soul because he wanted a grand sweeping romantic gesture to get Buffy back (and control her) and because he's a rebel, so of course he's going to go against the grain even without 100% understanding what he's getting himself into. The weight of the soul is too painful, so he retreats into his fake "Spike" persona again very quickly when Buffy prods him in that direction to feel powerful again. He's depicted as either blatantly not caring about his past victims or in such denial that he's putting on a convincing front. If you look at Spike as being pathetic and full of false bravado, his arc makes sense as far as he goes*. It's when the writers and fandom try to convince us that he's great and better than the likes of Angel or even Faith**, that I have to call BS. A more convincing end to his arc would be for him to take Caleb's place in season 7 as the First's muscle

We also have Harmony, who is FAR nicer and capable of self control than Spike without a chip in her head, and she never gets any credit. Because the writers remain consistent with demon lore with her. Despite how nice she can be she is still evil and that's why she betrays Team Angel in the finale.


*still makes no sense why Buffy doesn't stake him all throughout season 4-5
**"I reformed way before you did" he says to her. Um...no?

There was a scene with Willow and Tara where they were discussing Quasimodo and how he was evil and the few "good" things he did were to impress a woman who could not love him. Metaphorically, this was meant to be a statement about Spike and Buffy, of course. But I think what happened is that Joss Whedon and the writing staff caught onto the popularity of the relationship with many of the fans and started ignoring established lore to make it work. They went beyond just trying to impress Buffy. He made sacrifices and did things that Buffy would not know about.

I remember that, even though I liked a lot of it, it was feeling like fan fiction, as if Whedon was playing to the fantasies of a segment of the viewers with little regard for the established lore.

[SiegePerilous02]

There was a scene with Willow and Tara where they were discussing Quasimodo and how he was evil and the few "good" things he did were to impress a woman who could not love him. Metaphorically, this was meant to be a statement about Spike and Buffy, of course. But I think what happened is that Joss Whedon and the writing staff caught onto the popularity of the relationship with many of the fans and started ignoring established lore to make it work. They went beyond just trying to impress Buffy. He made sacrifices and did things that Buffy would not know about.

I remember that, even though I liked a lot of it, it was feeling like fan fiction, as if Whedon was playing to the fantasies of a segment of the viewers with little regard for the established lore.

That is exactly what it was, and probably the best proof that catering to a fanbase doesn't always yield good results. Especially as the writing staff was all over the map in their opinions. David Fury wrote the episode you're talking about, and at the time he was firmly in the camp that Buffy shouldn't reciprocate Spike's feelings and he was evil/warped by his very nature. Meanwhile, the Buffybot episode was written by Jane Epsensen who is practically a Spike fangirl and ships Spuffy. Marti Noxon seems to be somewhere in between, I believe it was her idea to for the season 6 Buffy/Spike affair, but wanted to present it as warped and abusive to explore both their dark natures. Otherwise, she may be a Bangel shipper considering her other output.

Joss apparently didn't want to do a romance with another vampire, did the rape attempt as a "wake up" call for the fanbase, and then when that didn't work did the backtracking in season 7 by placing a lot of the blame for the affair on Buffy and doing a redemption for Spike.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

That kind of mirrors the series finale of Dawson's Creek, the differing of opinions in the writers room. The original ending was for Dawson and Joey to end up together and Pacey and Andy(ie) to possibly get another chance together, then the writers and producers and such thought that was a bad ending that Pacey was getting robbed of a proper ending, that he deserved better than a maybe. They then went out and talked to people on the street and were surprised of how many people didn't end up with their soulmate so before they had fully filmed the first half of the finale they had a different writer rewrite portions of the script so that Pacey and Joey ended up together...the producer in the commentary admitted that the scene of Dawson in the writers room for his show and the opinions voiced were pretty much what happened on the show as to which character would end up with which character...

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Probably Vampire Diaries but that could just be my own distaste for it. I stop watching in season 5 because of my growing hate for the characters.

[90'sCartoonMan]

I'm always saddened to see Xander hate (not just here, but in general) because I thought he had great character development and went from being an emotional teenage boy (which is totally relatable) to a responsible, mature man (for the most part, season 6 wasn't really kind to anyone).

Buffy holds up for the most part, and I think if you look at Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, you could see some of the updates to the character dynamics (Sabrina being a modern Buffy, Theo as Willow, Harvey as Xander, Roz as Cordy, and Nick as Angel/Spike).

[SiegePerilous02]

I'm always saddened to see Xander hate (not just here, but in general) because I thought he had great character development and went from being an emotional teenage boy (which is totally relatable) to a responsible, mature man (for the most part, season 6 wasn't really kind to anyone).

Buffy holds up for the most part, and I think if you look at Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, you could see some of the updates to the character dynamics (Sabrina being a modern Buffy, Theo as Willow, Harvey as Xander, Roz as Cordy, and Nick as Angel/Spike).

Yeah, Xander is a jerk a lot of the time early on. But he's also a dumb teenager with a lot of good qualities, and he naturally matures. Peak Xander is late season 3-season 5. He's still got some good moments in the last season, but overall everyone except Faith started to get bad in that season. So he specifically doesn't deserve a lot of hate more than anyone else there.

I think Xander early on being Joss's self insert avatar brings us to some unfortunate conclusions about Xander's behavior/attitudes and Whedon's...real life tendencies. But with Death of the Author, we can at least see Xander's maturation on its own merits.

[Powerboy]

That is exactly what it was, and probably the best proof that catering to a fanbase doesn't always yield good results. Especially as the writing staff was all over the map in their opinions. David Fury wrote the episode you're talking about, and at the time he was firmly in the camp that Buffy shouldn't reciprocate Spike's feelings and he was evil/warped by his very nature. Meanwhile, the Buffybot episode was written by Jane Epsensen who is practically a Spike fangirl and ships Spuffy. Marti Noxon seems to be somewhere in between, I believe it was her idea to for the season 6 Buffy/Spike affair, but wanted to present it as warped and abusive to explore both their dark natures. Otherwise, she may be a Bangel shipper considering her other output.

Joss apparently didn't want to do a romance with another vampire, did the rape attempt as a "wake up" call for the fanbase, and then when that didn't work did the backtracking in season 7 by placing a lot of the blame for the affair on Buffy and doing a redemption for Spike.

Yes. In addition, Whedon clearly stated that nothing got filmed and on the air without his final approval. The meandering directionless quality was mainly because he wanted to create controversy among the fans which he hoped would "spike the ratings" (pun intended).