Heh, now that you're into season six, I can talk a little more about my Thoughts On Spike - because it was season six (being the first season I watched) where my opinions on Spike were formed, and it's a great deal of the reason why I don't like him much. Like I've said before, I don't loathe him; there are times when I like him quite a lot. But basically, I like him evil and I like him funny. Actually, when I jumped back to the early seasons after having gotten used to late-season Spike, I was really surprised how much I liked him when he was just being gleefully and slightly incompetently bad, as opposed to being fairly indifferent to him in later seasons.

(BTW, have you seen Tabula Rasa yet? I think that was season six ...)