It’s been almost a year since Shonda Rhimes shook up the future of primetime TV as we know it and made the move from longtime home ABC to Netflix. Now she’s back with even bigger news: on Friday, Rhimes announced her first slate of planned shows for the streaming service, and she’s determined to take over your watchlist.
Rhimes, her partner Betsy Beers, and the Shondaland Productions team are officially developing eight new shows with Netflix. It’s an impressive and exciting lineup that covers everything from 19th century England to the Manhattan party scene to 1840s Mexican California to the Silicon Valley boys’ club.
No release dates have been announced yet, but it’s already thrilling to see this vast range of stories lined up, and to see them in good hands. Along with creating addictive, bingeable shows, Rhimes has been rightly praised for her pointed and powerful efforts to normalise unique and diverse storytelling on television. Her #TGIT Thursdays on ABC were, for many years, one of the very few places on TV where women, people of colour, and LGBTQ characters were allowed to grow into layered, complicated, and humanizsd characters in their own right.
And it looks like Rhimes intends to keep that track record going strong at Netflix. In a statement about her upcoming shows, Rhimes said, “I wanted the new Shondaland to be a place where we expand the types of stories we tell, where my fellow talented creatives could thrive and make their best work and where we as a team come to the office each day filled with excitement.”
When it comes to great TV, that sounds like a winning strategy if we’ve ever heard one.
Untitled Shonda Rhimes Project
The cat’s been out of the bag on this one, but it’s just such a delicious premise: Rhimes’ first show for Netflix is based on the story of Anna Delvey, a con artist for the millennial age who scammed her way through New York City’s glitterati with nothing but abundant confidence, a fake name, and an active, if cryptic, Instagram presence.
Delvey’s bridge-burning caught up to her this past year, and she’s since been taken to court (and now, prison). But her story, as told in New York magazine, continues to captivate. Rhimes herself is creating this series, and her press release pitch asks, “Is she the stuff American dreams are made of or is she New York's biggest con woman? Is it a con if you enjoy being taken?” And we have chills.
illustrated by Ammiel Mendoza.
Untitled Bridgerton Project
We’re here for the romance novel and clearly, so is Rhimes. Julia Quinn’s best-selling Bridgerton series is getting some on-screen love from Shondaland and Scandal veteran Chris Van Dusen, who will adapt and run the show.
The Bridgerton novels are set in Regency England’s high society (so expect lots of glittering wealth and lush costumes) and centre on the powerful Bridgerton family, who can’t help but get wrapped up in drama ranging from the romantic to the political to everything in between. With eight books worth of plot twists to draw from, there will be plenty of juicy stories to adapt.
Photo: JohnGollop/ Getty Images.
The Warmth of Other Suns
Warmth is set across the early to mid-20th century and follows the lives of African-Americans migrating north and west from the Jim Crow south in search of a better life.
Along with the Shondaland stamp of approval, Warmth already comes with an impressive pedigree. The series is based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson, and will adapted by playwright Anna Deavere Smith, two-time Drama Desk winner and recipient of the National Humanities Medal and a MacArthur Genius Grant.
Photo: Ilja Mask / EyeEm.
Pico & Sepulveda
As with The Warmth of Other Suns, it looks like Rhimes is set to give us a (very necessary) primer on American history. Pico & Sepulveda is set in 1840s California, back when the territory was very much not United States land. The series is set at the tail end of California’s time as a Mexican state, when foreign settlers and armed forces came through to claim the land for the U.S., threatening war and brutality in the process. We’re sure brushing up on this history ahead of time wouldn’t be a spoiler.
The series will be created and produced by Emmy-award writer Janet Leahy.
illustrated by Paola Delucca.
Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change
Netflix and Shondaland acquired the rights to activist, attorney, and tech exec Ellen Pao’s memoir detailing her life, her career, and the 2012 gender discrimination lawsuit against her former employer that made headlines and shone a much-needed spotlight on Silicon Valley’s pervasively sexist boys’ club culture. We’re not yet sure how this will be translated on-screen — if it will be a documentary, a dramatised adaptation, and so forth — but Rhimes’ history with “strong women” (even though she’s on record rejecting the term, rightly noting that a “strong smart woman is just a woman”) leaves us confident that Pao’s story will be handled in a thoughtful, timely manner.
Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
The Residence
Kate Andersen Brower’s nonfiction book The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House tells an insider’s account of working in one of the most famous homes in history, featuring accounts from service staff — including, according to the book’s blurb, the maids, butlers, cooks, florists, doormen, engineers, and others — who worked in the White House from the Kennedys up to the Obamas (and frankly, we don’t know how ready we are to hear about what the current administration is like). Shondaland will produce stories about the first families based on The Residence for Netflix, hopefully offering us a fresh perspective on the well-trod subject of the presidency.
Photo: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/ Getty Images.
Sunshine Scouts
This one’s truly an original: a group of teenage Sunshine Scouts (we’re thinking this is similar to Girl Scouts) away at camp is spared from an apocalyptic disaster. Now, they’re returning to the rest of humanity to make sure everyone follows Sunshine Scout Law — although what that entails, we’ll just have to wait and see. The half-hour comedy will be created by writer and actress Jill Alexander, following Rhimes’ trend of promoting and hiring new, young female talent.
illustrated by Mallory Heyer; illustrated by Marina Esmeraldo.
Hot Chocolate Nutcracker
Everything about this screams “Christmass” to us, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. The Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles is the subject of this documentary — particularly the company’s award-winning take on the classic wintery ballet The Nutcracker. Debbie Allen’s reputation is one of fostering young, diverse talent in dance, and her academy’s production of The Nutcracker shakes up the traditional Russian staging with an inclusive cast of all ages and a blend of dance traditions. Oliver Bokelberg, who previously worked on Scandal, will direct, produce and serve as cinematographer for this doc. All that’s left is the hot cocoa — extra marshmallows, please.
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