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7 Spike
Quite a rare kind of resurrection, this: it’s not often that a character will die on one show, only to turn up on another series afterwards. That’s precisely what happened to James Marsters’ almost embarrassingly popular Spike when Buffy hit the end of the road. One minute he was Sunnydale’s finest vampire; the next he was sharing screen time with Los Angeles’ broodiest vampire and his cronies in the offices of Wolfram & Hart on Angel . As far as afterlifes go, we’d say he landed on his feet, even if he couldn’t touch anyone or anything for a fair while, being a ghost ’n’ all.
What’s a bit sad about this particular back-from-the-dead tale is that Spike was given a wonderfully emotional and hugely redemptive death that helped to save the world, thus bringing his character arc to a massively satisfying resolution. But because viewers already knew he was going to be a regular on Angel ’s next season, his death was robbed of much of its poignancy – it wasn’t a death, just a TTFN. Magical reanimating amulets have a lot to answer for…
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