Facebook Watch has signed a deal with 20th Century Fox Television allowing it to offer the Joss Whedon classics ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, its spin-off ‘Angel’ and ‘Firefly’.  Facebook Watch is offering every episode of each show, in a play to entice viewers by using ’90s and 2000s nostalgia.  In a similar move, Facebook Watch has also struck a deal to offer MTV’s groundbreaking reality series ‘The Real World’.  While that series won’t begin streaming until next year, the Whedon content is available now.  The agreement with 20th Century Fox is not exclusive, as all three shows are available on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu and on a per-episode basis through other services like Google Play, iTunes and Youtube.

‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ ran for seven seasons on The WB and UPN, from 1996-2003.  This classic girl-power series didn’t just spawn ‘Angel’ but paved the way for other series like ‘Alias’ and ‘Charmed’.  ‘Angel’ debuted in 1999 on The WB and remained there even after ‘Buffy’ moved to the UPN network.  It also managed to last two seasons after ‘Buffy’ signed off, until 2005.  ‘Firefly’ is a sore spot for Whedon fans.  This space-based western debuted in 2002 but didn’t last an entire season on FOX, who actually didn’t even air every episode before cancelling it.  But ‘Firefly’ became a huge word-of-mouth hit after it was released (in its entirety) on DVD.  FOX didn’t revive the show but did attempt to spin it off into a film series.  Sadly, the first film, ‘Serenity’ was not a success and no sequels were produced.

There are plans underway for a reboot of ‘Buffy’ with an African American lead.  Whedon is attached, along with ‘Midnight, Texas’ creator Monica Owusu-Breen, who will act as showrunner.  This series is expected to air on FOX, whenever it arrives.

Are you excited to see these Whedon series via Facebook Watch?

Source: Deadline