How could Riley have been done better.

C

CordelliasHeart

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"You deserve something more then Demons and Darkness, you deserve someone who can walk with you into the light" (Dont have the exact quote from Angel.

At this point in the franchise that quotes FORGOTTEN completely almost, the reason Angel and Buffy stay away from each other is to keep Angelus from resurfacing, and hints that Angel and Buffy will PROMPTLY go at it like rabbits in heat if the Shanshus ever fufilled.

Well... point Riley was intended to bring the quote above to life... any ideas on how he could have been better done?

Dont get me wrong Im a Die hard BANGEL shipper.

the scene with her breaking down in tears after Stabbing him will always have a special place in my heart.

I suppose the Failure of Riley, is in a way, a good thing, as it means BANGEL is more likely to happen...
 
Well, I don't know that I'd call Riley's character a failure exactly, because he was written with the expectation that viewers were going to hate him. The thing is, I don't really think the writers ever intended to keep him around long term, much less give Buffy a partner who was removed from the darkness and demons that surround her life.
 
Think he was pretty good in season 4.

It was later, in season 5, when he seemed to become insecure and needy that I started to have problem with him.
Personally I would've liked to see Riley being a guy that could keep a distance when needed. One who would let Buffy dealing with stuff her way and not having this desperate need to help even though no help was needed or wanted.

Basically a guy that would not bring more drama into her life.
Would've loved to see Buffy in a simple, steady, relationship that worked because the guy would let her do the thing she does and being happy with it.
That doesn't necessary means he would have to agree with everything though. But please disagree in a non confrontational way. And be supporting whatever the outcome.

/SK
 
He could have been less boring. lol. I agree with sk73. He became to needy and obsessed with Buffy letting Dracula bite her. I think his failure to Buffy was letting vampires feed off of him. I don't think he really got over Buffy being with Angel and Spike saying Buffy needs a little monster in her man, didn't help him any. As much as I love Bangel, it's hard for other people to live up to that. I mean Buffy is Angel's true happiness, and there's proof of that. How can anyone Buffy or Angel dates compare to that? It must be tough.
 
I honestly think Riley could have worked if they had chosen another actor. This is not meant to be bashing on Marc Blucas. But the guy really was card board. He was boring to watch on screen. Even worse than that is the total lack of chemistry with SMG. I actually thought in early S4 he was going to get together with Willow because him and AH had some nice chemistry going on. Which is why they stopped writing scenes between the two. But then I think...why go that route if even the people in charge know there's no spark between Buffy and Riley? It's like intentionally setting him up to fail. So why bother in the first place?

Now if they had chosen Christian Kane instead I have no doubt things would have gone in a whole different direction. Granted they probably couldn't have done the whole Initiative storyline with him. And con-fed Iowa boy doesn't really work for him but I'd mark all of that in the plus column. But at least the guy is interesting to watch on screen. I don't know if him and SMG can have chemistry (since we never saw them together) but it would have been still been better IMO.
 
If Riley was a teaching assistant in a psychology course, he should have been portrayed more like Holden Webster from "Conversations with Dead People". The guy seemed to have no interest or ability in the subject he was taking in graduate school. He should have had more insight. Someone that passive would never have been promoted to a squad leader of any kind and for someone who was presented as a dedicated elite soldier, maybe he should have succeeded at something.

BTW I have seen Marc Blucas on other shows and he is just as laid-back and passive there as here, so @RomanticSoul is right, they needed a better actor for the part. He never seemed to have any real love for Buffy largely because he is passive rather than passionate and there was no chemistry there.
 
I second getting a different actor. I actually really like Marc Blucas, got nothing against him, but as Riley he didn't really work. Agreed that he had poor chemistry with Buffy, might be why I never got invested in their story. But furthermore, I should have been invested in the character of Riley himself. Especially because out of the love interest, he's the only one aside from Angel and Spike that got a real storyline separate from the SO. And yet, I like Anya, Cordy, Tara and Oz better.

Overall, a lot of the reasons I don't like Riley is because I don't agree with how he thinks. I probably wouldn't be friends with a guy like him in real life. I guess they would have to re-write the character for me to truly like him.
 
Thirded on the different actor.
I've seen Marc in other things ('House', Blue Bloods') and he was just...much better than he was here, less cardboard-like and stiff. Maybe he was acting like that because of the military angle.
But in my experience off-duty soldiers aren't like that at all. Disciplined yes, but they know when to switch off and have fun.
Plus his chemistry with SMG just wasn't there in S4- they tried but there was no sparkage. Some of the banter between them worked, but you need more to sustain romance.
Things were a little better in S5 between them, but by then it really was too late, and they ended the relationship in a pretty clumsy way. Basically with Riley 'getting what he needs' elsewhere than with Buffy. 🙄

I actually would've preffered Buffy to get a 'proper' normal boyfriend, somebody ignorant of her double life- it would've been different enough from Angel to be interesting and they could've concentrated on giving the character actual faults/personality.
 
Riley in season 5 had no purpose other than being Buffy's boyfriend, where as the other partners of main character by then had other roles too, Anya had the Magic shop in season 5 and Tara had been established as a witch. Riley however lost his extra parts at the end of season 4, he was no longer a soldier and no longer a TA.
 
Riley's too much like Angel. Same mysterious, insecure, angsty, anal about Buffy larger than life in-a-boy-band fighter type. Boring. I'd build him as a complete opposite of Angel. Meet Riley - the NOT Angel. He has no mysteries to hide, he's not intimidated by or insecure about or even overly concerned with Buffy's power, he's a warm, laid back, down to earth, real person with his own dreams and goals who just happened to fall in love with the slayer. He's not a soldier, not much of a fighter too. You can keep the boy band looks, nothing wrong with that. Does the audience hate him? They do, at first. Then he grows on them, then they love him, then he gets killed. Bonus - with a character like this you can viciously make fun of the pompousness of Buffy's relationship with Angel.
 
Blaze
Blaze
This doesn't sound half-bad, why couldn't we get something like this.
EVIL UU said:
Meet Riley - the NOT Angel. He has no mysteries to hide, he's not intimidated by or insecure about or even overly concerned with Buffy's power, he's a warm, laid back, down to earth, real person with his own dreams and goals who just happened to fall in love with the slayer. He's not a soldier, not much of a fighter too. You can keep the boy band looks, nothing wrong with that. Does the audience hate him? They do, at first. Then he grows on them, then they love him, then he gets killed.
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This was actually the kind of boyfriend I was hoping for during season 4 (since a life without a romantic interest is clearly impossible or horrifying). Someone who was everything Angel wasn't, in part because as a person I kind of think Buffy needed to try that. It doesn't matter if it wouldn't work out in the end, or if he died or didn't, as long as she (and we) got something entirely new and kind of "normal". Ushering in the next, as above mentioned, 'mysterious dude' was just kind of trite.
 
Taake said:
It doesn't matter if it wouldn't work out in the end, or if he died or didn't, as long as she (and we) got something entirely new and kind of "normal".
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Yeah, I said kill 'cause it is BtVS after all but with decent enough character development you could keep a character like this on the show indefinitely, why not? Anya's relationship with Xander started in season 3 and lasted until the last episode. Nobody complains about that.

Taake said:
Someone who was everything Angel wasn't, in part because as a person I kind of think Buffy needed to try that.
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I agree. I think that Buffy has a huge problem with separating her slayer activities from her personal life and having partners involved in the supernatural underworld makes it even harder. Too often a relationship problem that should be solved by Buffy having a conversation with her partner becomes a slayer problem the slayer solves with violence. I don't like this narrative, it absolves Buffy of responsibility. Also, I feel like she never gets to learn to talk to her lovers.
 
EVIL UU said:
Riley's too much like Angel. Same mysterious, insecure, angsty, anal about Buffy larger than life in-a-boy-band fighter type. Boring. I'd build him as a complete opposite of Angel. Meet Riley - the NOT Angel. He has no mysteries to hide, he's not intimidated by or insecure about or even overly concerned with Buffy's power, he's a warm, laid back, down to earth, real person with his own dreams and goals who just happened to fall in love with the slayer. He's not a soldier, not much of a fighter too. You can keep the boy band looks, nothing wrong with that. Does the audience hate him? They do, at first. Then he grows on them, then they love him, then he gets killed. Bonus - with a character like this you can viciously make fun of the pompousness of Buffy's relationship with Angel.
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I think at the beginning of S4 this is what we, like Buffy, were supposed to think Riley was. A normal guy. But much like revealing Angel is a vampire, they just had to make Riley a super soldier. They really failed with the whole military/Initiative plot. I think maybe if he had just been the TA to Professor Walsh and she was still in the Initiative then he slowly could have figured things out. He would have been shocked and felt betrayed by her. That would have been interesting.

I do complain about Xander and Anya. Xander is in his early 20's he should be dating more, not trying to marry an ex demon. And Anya should have either left after Selfless or dropped the whole Xander thing completely and moved on.
 
thetopher
thetopher
Agreed on both points. The Xander/Anya thing dragged along forever.
Only things which worked about Riley is his involvement with Xander and some of the banter with Angel (I say banter, but I mean that from the audiences prospective of course). But he didn't work as a Scoobie and certainly not as Buffy's boyfriend. They needed a better actor and a different direction for the character.
 
Blaze said:
I second getting a different actor. I actually really like Marc Blucas, got nothing against him, but as Riley he didn't really work. Agreed that he had poor chemistry with Buffy, might be why I never got invested in their story. But furthermore, I should have been invested in the character of Riley himself. Especially because out of the love interest, he's the only one aside from Angel and Spike that got a real storyline separate from the SO. And yet, I like Anya, Cordy, Tara and Oz better.

Overall, a lot of the reasons I don't like Riley is because I don't agree with how he thinks. I probably wouldn't be friends with a guy like him in real life. I guess they would have to re-write the character for me to truly like him.
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This was Blucas first acting gig so he had no idea what to do - at least according to an interview. And yeah - completely agree!
 
I saw nothing wrong with the actor, I think that he did quite well with the material that he was given to work with. I just wish that he had been presented more as a professional soldier, which he was supposed to be, who had to make a real conscious effort to fit in as the boyishly charming grad student. Also, maybe it would have helped if he hadn't always been so squeaky clean, with the carefully coordinated wardrobe, especially after he had left the Initiative, and no longer required to present that same image anymore. Being slightly grubby and unkempt worked wonders for Wes, it would probably have done the same for Riley.
 
Is it weird that I found nothing wrong with Riley? I liked him a lot. He was sweet, and cute and I feel he brought some lightness into Buffy's life despite the fact that he worked for the initiative. I started to become annoyed with him in season 5 when he started to become so insecure and needy, which I felt was a bit out of the blue. I'm really curious about what triggered it.
 
I don't think it helped matters that Riley's insecurity came to light at the same time Buffy was dealing with her mother's brain tumor. Giving her an ultimatum at that time of crisis made him come off pretty lousy.

Out of curiosity, what were the off-screen reasons for Riley leaving? Did Marc Blucas want to go? Was he always meant to be written out when he was?
 
VisionBoy said:
I don't think it helped matters that Riley's insecurity came to light at the same time Buffy was dealing with her mother's brain tumor. Giving her an ultimatum at that time of crisis made him come off pretty lousy.

Out of curiosity, what were the off-screen reasons for Riley leaving? Did Marc Blucas want to go? Was he always meant to be written out when he was?
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I'm not sure, and I don't recall reading it anywhere, but it almost seems as though Riley was supposed to be a throw away character from the very beginning, the same as Spike was in Season 2, but, in his case, he just never got the reprieve that Spike did.
 
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