Buffy the Vampire Slayer Star Reflects on Controversial Episode Sending Them to Therapy
James Marsters describes "Seeing Red" as the "darkest professional day" of his life.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's sixth season episode "Seeing Red" is perhaps the most controversial of the series and, a more than 20 years after it originally aired in May 2002 remains upsetting for many fans of the series, but it turns out that it had a major impact on one of the series' stars as well. James Marsters, who played Spike in the iconic series, recently appeared on an episode of Michael Rosenbaum's Inside of You podcast and revealed that the episode — specifically the troubling scene with Sarah Michelle Gellar's Buffy, actually sent him into therapy and remains the "darkest professional day" of his life.
"Buffy sent me into therapy, actually," Marsters said (via Deadline). "Buffy crushed. me. It's a problematic scene for a lot of people who like the show. And it's the darkest professional day of my life."
The scene in question sees Spike attempt to force himself on Buffy in an attempt to convince her that she still has feelings for him — Buffy and the vampire Spike had previously been lovers. Buffy manages to fight Spike off and shove him into the wall, but the scene remains a difficult one. Marsters further explain that the sexual assault scene came out of a directive to the writers where they were asked to "slap metaphoric fangs" on their worst day and the scene was based on the experience of a female writer of the show.
"The writers were being asked to come up with their worst day, the day that they don't talk about, t heir dark secret, the one that keeps them up at night, when they really hurt somebody or when they really got hurt or made a big mistake of some kind — and then slap metaphoric fangs on top of that dark secret and tell everybody about it," Marsters explained.
He continued, explaining how the scene was based on one writer's experience, "She had gotten broken up with, and she went to her ex's place and thought that if they made love one more time, everything would be fixed. And she sort of forced herself and he had to physically remove her from the premises. And that was just like one of the most painful memories of that time of her life. [The show's writers] thought that since Buffy was a superhero, that they could flip the sexes since Buffy could defend herself very, very easily from this. They thought that they could have a man do it to a woman, and it would be the same thing, I think."
Marsters said that he disagreed with the writers and had concerns from the beginning about how viewers would react to the scene, but that he was also in a position where he couldn't refuse contractually — and that the scene was his personal hell.
"We got the scene in the can and it was hell. I was in [my] personal hell," he said. "I don't like sexual predation scenes, anything that has to do with it. I don't audition for those things. If there's a movie with that kind of material, I don't go see the movie. If it pops up on television, I've got to turn the television off before I break it. I have a very visceral reaction to that stuff."
Marsters isn't alone in having struggled with that episode. Gellar herself has previously said that when she watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Seeing Red" is an episode she and her family skips: "I have trouble with [season] six. It wasn't appropriate for them at the time, and I just don't want to rewatch it."
Will There Be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Reboot?
With reboots or revivals of popular television series being a major entertainment trend, there has been discussion of a reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the past — notably a reboot was announced in 2018, though nothing has ever really come to fruition. However, earlier this year, country music legend Dolly Parton who served as a producer on the original series, revealed that work is still happening on a new series.
"They're still working on that," Parton said at the time. "They're thinking about bringing it back and revamping it."
A Buffy Pop-Up is Coming to Chicago
While a Buffy reboot may not be a reality just yet, fans of the series do have a chance to continue to celebrate the series with a recently announced pop-up experience in Chicago. Media brand Bucket Listers is celebrating Halloween with an immersive Buffy activation described as "combination of equal parts cocktail bar, restaurant, training ground, and haunted house, molded into a one-of-a-kind, over-the-top evening." The event takes place on Saturday, October 26th.
