As much as I love Warren and wanted to see him again in Buffy, I did not like the twist in S8 where Joss changes that Amy was stalking Warren and the others and she 'saved' him from Willow's wrath at the last moment. (Thing I'm wondering there is why couldn't she save him before he was skinless? Kind of stupid on her part if you ask me...)
The first reason is that it was a complete screwup (hence the title). Joss wrote Warren back in the series by using the explanation that he had been saved by Amy before Willow actually killed him. The trouble is that the First can only use the form of someone that has died. Joss had admitted somewhere (I really don't remember where exactly but it was probably in the back of one of the S8 comics - if you absolutely need an exact quote and place where I heard it I can try to find it) that he had completely forgot that the First used Warren's form in S7 - hence Warren would've had to have died. Not sure how he forgot that since that was a big part of the storyline where the First tricks Andrew into killing Jonathan to open the seal of Danthalzar. Plus there was more than one scene besides that where it shifted from villain to villain with Warren being one of them.
Second, true it was a twist, but what makes a twist in a storyline good is when there is a subtle hint somewhere in the story that it is coming but not too obvious that it gives it away completely. There was no hint that Amy and Warren would team up. In fact they never had a scene together and never knew one another. Even the episode 'The Killer in Me' in S7 in which Amy casts a spell on Willow turns into the form of Warren, Amy didn't know who he was and even states that she didn't mean for it to do that, it was just a generic sort of spell in which her punishment would depend on who it was cast on. The events in S8 don't up here. The explanation that Amy just 'lied about it' really didn't make sense.
Third, Willow could sense Warren's life-force from anywhere pretty much. That is how she tracked him down to kill him in the first place. So how was it that Amy was able to 'trick' Willow with some sort of hokey magic trick along with countless other people? She couldn't. Plain and simple. When Willow was dark she was connected to everything, she would've known if she didn't get him. She would've sensed his life-force.
Last, why the heck is Warren still skinless? Is it just me or are her abilities conveniently only useful for certain things? How is it that she could save him from Willow and survive Sunnydale's destruction but yet she can't fix his 'skinless' problem? Buffy mentions that Amy can heal so why doesn't she heal him?
Again, I love Warren. He's probably my fav character. But that is why I'm picky about his storyline. I want to see it done right and I just really couldn't get behind this particular one. Also, I'm a huge fan of Joss so don't take this critique as a hating of him, because I think Joss is awesome.
How would have I done/fixed it? Well aside from not involving Amy at all...
I would [A] have it turn out to be a demon of some sort posing as Warren, and Amy may or may not know it. I have a few different really good ideas on that line. Or [B] the skinless Warren we see is actually the Warren-bot that he had made of himself that Amy found, skinned it (I know - gross) to make it seem like more of a possibility that it was Warren and she just saw fit to keep around in order to scare the hell out of Willow.
