Top 30 villains in television history

Photo Credit: The CW

4. Spike 

The punk rock British vampire flips Buffy’s world upside down when he comes cruising into Sunnydale. James Marsters literally won over the hearts of fans as the bleach-haired bad guy who ends up sticking around despite his villainy. Ironically, Angel was meant to be the bad boy but Spike ends up filling that role in the decade-long dispute: Angel or Spike?

When he breezes into town, Spike is just a vampire with a chip on his shoulder. He’s killed a few Slayers and is looking to add a certain blonde to that list before finding a new place to party. While he eventually becomes a bit of an anti-hero working alongside/falling in love with Buffy, he’s the kind of fun-loving antagonist that audience easily root for.

Spike doesn’t want to destroy the world or even kill off all of humanity. As he points out, he likes watching soccer, reality television, and just having a good-time. With that kind of attitude, he ends up inadvertently getting in the path of the Scooby gang when they try to stop him from various schemes when he’s really just trying to have fun.

He’s consistently caught because he ends up jumping into situations without a plan, because Spike finds sitting around waiting to be pretty boring. He isn’t a sadist or a genius like almost everyone else on this list, he’s just a good-old-fashioned vampire looking to flaunt his punk rock attitude and sarcasm.