'As You Were', Riley and Machiavelli

[Emmie]

I just read this fascinating livejournal entry about the Buffy ep 'As You Were' that really puts an interesting twist on Riley's role and redeems Spike.

theohara.livejournal.com/162286.html

The jist of it being that Riley comes into town looking for Buffy to help him hunt the Suvolte demons, but actually sees her hooking up with Spike on her front lawn. So Riley's actions from that point are setting up Spike to look like the Doctor to get her away from him.

Its interesting when you look at the deliberate plotholes throughout the ep and the fact that Doug Petrie does like to write sympathetic-Spike episodes.

I like this explanation because I never believed the 'Spike is the Doctor' line and it was never really addressed or explained. It also makes Riley a hell of a lot more interesting to me.

Any thoughts?

[Wyndam]

Definitely agree with you there. Spike as "the Doctor" was just very out of place, and I just didn't think it worked at all. I enjoyed the episode, except for Spike's involvement. That was a good read though.

[Emmie]

This review from imdb nicely sums up how I feel about Spike being the Doctor:
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"Plus, there's flat out NO WAY Spike came up with a plan to sell demon eggs to foreign governments. I love Spike. He's my favorite character. And I think Buffy's underestimating him when she says that he's "incompetant," because he does come up with some pretty clever ideas. But, am I really suppose to believe that Spike-- who couldn't even weigh down a body in "Seeing Red"-- has somehow hooked up with covert officials from some foreign power, smuggled demon eggs into Sunnydale, and plans to sell them to the highest bidder? SPIKE?!?! Come on! When and how did he do this? Does he have some knowledge of international politics that's never been mentioned before? Some underworld/supernatural connections who don't hate him? Because, he's still a vampire, which has him on the outs with humans and he fights with Buffy, which has the demon world out for his blood.

And, even more importantly, WHY would he do this? He's too impatient, easily bored and direct to plot out a global money-making scheme. He steals everything that he needs. He lives in a graveyard and wears the same clothes all the time. I might've accepted that he was planning to give the money to Buffy, but they don't even give me that! The whole thing is completely out of character for Spike.

For the sake of argument, though, lets say he DID somehow think up this grandiose plot. Would he really use the name "The Doctor" after he was pushed off Glory's tower by "Doc" last season? Spike agonized over his failure in "The Gift." Why would he adopt the name of the man who beat him and, indirectly, caused Buffy to die?

Also, if he came up with this plan, wouldn't he know something about the product? Spike is the one character on the show (Well, besides Anya) who can always identify demons and their habits. He can speak demon languages, and can rattle off all the names of the demons the Scoobies encounter, and prides himself on being up-to-date on all things evil. But he somehow didn't know that those stupid eggs needed to be frozen?

Nope. I'm not buying it. I can certainly see Spike coming up with an evil plan. Even, figuring out how to deactivate the chip and attacking someone. But, I'm not accepting that he concocted that convoluted demon egg smuggling scheme."

-katierose295
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It seems like the unlikely 'Spike is the Doctor' plot thread is another subtlety that is never explained.

Who actually thinks Spike was the Doctor?

[slayersarah]

interesting read. i definately don't think Spike was "the Doctor". i didn't believe it when i saw the episode either.

[Rachster]

i really like that because I could never believe that spike was the doctor it just seemed way off and for me made it hard to rewatch that ep

[henzINNIT]

I can buy most of that. I think it's a bit too motivated by that obvious Spike fan trying to make it into something it's not in many ways though. Whether or not Spike was planning a brilliant scheme is definately questionable, but the whole point of that episode is showing he's still fundementally a bad guy.

[ded1]

May 4, 2008 5:10:37 GMT -5 henzINNIT said:

I can buy most of that. I think it's a bit too motivated by that obvious Spike fan trying to make it into something it's not in many ways though. Whether or not Spike was planning a brilliant scheme is definately questionable, but the whole point of that episode is showing he's still fundementally a bad guy.

Spike fans would never make something into something it's not(insert sarcasm)

Whether or not he was The Doctor,he was still hiding the eggs.That,at least,makes him an accessory.To me,the whole thing boils down to what Buffy says when she said that she let herself forget what Spike was

[dane5by5]

I love that interpretation of the episode. I'm going to have to rewatch it before I weigh in with an opinion but that was a very convincing argument. From my memory of the episode and story, the reveal of Spike as The Doctor did seem a little "off". Although maybe that was the point, there was no need for forshadowing because Spike is/was fundamentally evil.

[Emmie]

May 4, 2008 6:17:18 GMT -5 ded1 said:

To me,the whole thing boils down to what Buffy says when she said that she let herself forget what Spike was

Yep, "what" Spike was. Another analysis of this ep discusses pyschomachia which was a theatrical genre in the middle ages where all the minor characters in the play were elements of the main character. Spike's character is the part of Buffy that she wants to kill. (Spikejones, Tea at the Ford)

I think this episode is interesting for the fact that its where Buffy stops seeing Spike as a 'thing' or a 'what' that she can use and starts treating him as a person, "William".

Why would Buffy start treating Spike as a person if she thought he was a dangerous international demon/weapon dealer? Her reaction doesn't fit for me. Nor why she and Riley let Spike off the hook if they actually believed he was the Doctor. The Doctor is making deals that will potentially kill thousands of people, but its Spike so we shake our heads, punch him in the face and look the other way.

It fits for my way of thinking that Spike's involvement was exaggerated by Riley to shake Buffy into realizing what she was doing was 'bad', pure black bad and not the gray area that it actually was. 'Spike is the Doctor' now was the excuse she used, he's doing evil now (black) versus he used to do evil and now he helps out by killing demons and protecting Dawn (gray). She needed it to be 'wrong' for her to quit. Remember her asking Tara to tell her she's wrong for what she's doing.

[ded1]

May 4, 2008 14:05:57 GMT -5 Emmie said:

Nor why she and Riley let Spike off the hook if they actually believed he was the Doctor. The Doctor is making deals that will potentially kill thousands of people, but its Spike so we shake our heads, punch him in the face and look the other way.

This was my biggest problem with the way they did Spike's story.In season 5 especially,there were events where Spike should of been dealt with yet they did exactly just what you said(Out of My Mind and Crush,to me,are prime examples)To me it seemed that,due to Spike's popularity,he was allowed alot more leeway in survival.

Don't get me wrong,I liked the character and JM's portrayal and I know that Joss is more of a character writer than anything else.I just really wished that they gave him a better plot device than the chip

[Rachster]

I always wondered why Buffy never just staked spike i mean over the seasons there were Heep's of times where she could have caught him off Gard but she never did

[Enisy]

I think that essay is trying too hard to exonerate Spike in an episode that was meant to do the opposite. Besides, it's obvious, to me, that James was playing Spike as if he was, indeed, the Doctor. ("I'm holding these for... a friend, who...") King posted a pretty convincing argument about this episode in another forum:

It doesn't strike me as out of character for him. Is it a badly designed plan? Yes. Does it have substantial risk for relatively little gain? Yes. Does it stand a good chance of depriving Spike of his actual objectives? Yes. That's a Spike plan to the very core, isn't it?

My take on it is that he probably heard about the scheme over kitten poker, thought he'd found a brilliant way to make a big score that wouldn't cut into his Buffy-schtupping schedule, would keep him in blood and smokes, and probably give him some leverage to try to get Buffy out of the Doublemeat, and didn't bother to get more details about the merchandise.

My only complaint is that we didn't get to actually see the very in-character aforementioned motives; we have to fanwank them instead.