Entertainment News

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly come to Facebook Watch

By NICK ROMANO 

As streaming platforms compete for those big nostalgia gets to drive up viewership numbers, Facebook Watch surprises with a triple catch.


All episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly are available to binge on Facebook’s streaming platform beginning today. Sarah Michelle Gellar, who starred on the former for series creator Joss Whedon, helped make the announcement. Where else? On Facebook.

All three shows, however, are also still available to stream on Hulu.

“When we started asking people what can trigger conversations, [nostalgic content] came up as something that’s really interesting to have on the platform,” Fidji Simo, Facebook’s VP of Video, told Deadline. “It’s really a way to test this hypothesis.”

Because of the social media element of Buffy‘s new home, the company is looking to promote “watch parties,” virtual experiences for users to watch and discuss together.

A watch party for a Buffy-thon will commence today (Nov. 30) at 3 p.m. PT, followed by an Angel watch party on Saturday at 12 p.m. PT, and one for Firefly on Sunday at 12 p.m. PT — each through their respective series Facebook page.

Matthew Henick, Facebook’s head of content planning and strategy for media partnerships, mentioned to Variety how these three Whedon shows “have incredibly dedicated fanbases that have persisted and even grown online,” which makes them “great content to experiment with.”

Nothing made that more clear than news of a Buffy reboot, which, even though it has the blessing of Gellar and Angel‘s David Boreanaz, felt the fervor of riled up fans of the original.

Facebook Watch already dove into original content with Sorry For Your Loss, a drama with Avengers: Infinity War‘s Elizabeth Olsen and Star Wars: The Last Jedi‘s Kelly Marie Tran. Now we’ll see if Facebook’s nostalgia experiment yields great results.