Branded Season Premiere TV Events on Facebook

One new notification: You've been invited to attend Nip/Tuck All-New Episodes on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 10:00pm - 11:00pm on FX Networks. Umm, yes please! It's been far too long since I've had some McNamara/Troy in my life.  Am I late to the game on this? Or are these branded events as new as they seem to be?

Libby and I (and I'm sure some of you) saw this pop up in our Facebook feeds last week and this morning I noticed some of my friends were "attending" All-new Grey's Anatomy Thursday January 8th at 9/8c on ABC.  As far as I can tell they appear that they were posted by the networks themselves, are branded enough to convey all the info they need to, yet are written in Facebook friendly language.

In case you don't feel like checking the pages out, here are a few quick stats as of Friday morning. 

Nip/Tuck Page

• 72,093 confirmed guests
  
• One posted link
  
• One posted video
  
• 5051 wall posts ("I can't wait...Christian is my hero" and "I've heard that after the upcoming part II of season 5 airs, there will only be one more season left! =( Is that true? Can anyone confirm?") 

Grey's Anatomy Page

• 4,443 confirmed guests (maybe a new post? Or obvsiously not as good as Nip/Tuck! Or maybe non-Facebook audience?)
  
• One posted video
  
• 148 wall posts (I'm going with new post. I'll keep an eye on this event to see how it expands through people sharing and update you all later!)
  

So what of it?

• Users control the fate of the event popularity. I saw that Libby was attending and since we usually have "let's kill a bottle (or two) of wine and watch TV night" at least once a week, I figured I should also attend. I saw both events in the news feed and was curious enough to check it out. 
  
• It's a friendly reminder of when the season premier is.  We're used to checking Facebook for the latest and greatest dirt.  Our attention is focused on looking for info, why not have it be a quick reminder about one of my favorite shows. 
• Even though the events are branded, my friends are the ones passing along the information and sharing the news. ______ is attending _____ show.  Peer advice over experts is favored by Gen Y. 
• It's a great opportunity for fans of the brand/show to talk about how much they love it, even just a short "I love me some Kimber!"

I could go on, but I'd rather hear from you! What do you think of these branded season premier events?