Shonda Rhimes was born in 1970 in Chicago. While studying English Literature and Film Studies at Dartmouth College, she became part of the Black Underground Theater Association, and engaged in both acting and directing plays. Her first silver screen work was editing for a 1995 documentary about baseball player Hank Aaron. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she wrote the scripts for several films, including the second Princess Diaries film, and sometimes directed as well.
Her first work for regular television dates back to 2005 and is still running. Yep, it's Grey's Anatomy. We are now in the nineteenth season and there still seems to be no end to the adventures of the hospital in Seattle. Since its early years, Grey's Anatomy has been praised for its diverse cast and storylines that connect seamlessly with medical developments and current social themes.
The success of Grey's Anatomy was so great that two spin-offs have now been made. The first, Private Practice, ran between 2007 and 2013 and followed Dr. Addison Montgomery, who left the Seattle hospital for a private clinic in Los Angeles. The second, Station 19, has been running since 2018 and is about the Seattle Fire Department. This series follows Dr. Ben Warren, who decided to leave his medical career behind and join the excitement of the fire department. Station 19 and Grey's Anatomy have regular crossovers these days.
Rhimes' other big series are Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder. Scandal ran between 2012 and 2018 and dealt with crisis management in the political arena in Washington. How to Get Away with Murder ran between 2015 and 2020 and was about a criminal justice professor who becomes involved in a real-life murder case. Just like Grey's Anatomy, both series are characterized by a large and diverse ensemble of actors and incredibly topical storylines. A lesser-known project by Rhimes from that time is Off the Map from 2011, about a team of doctors working in a remote village in the South American jungle. However, this series was canceled after one season.
To make her ideas for series possible, Rhimes founded the production company Shondaland in 2005. In this way, her name was also associated with projects in which she herself was perhaps less involved, such as the comedy-crime series The Catch, the costume drama Still Star-Crossed and the legal series For the People (2018).
In 2017, Rhimes signed a deal with Netflix that would direct new productions from her or her company to the big red streaming service. While that didn't apply to many series that were still running at the time, it did mean that from now on we had to go to Netflix to enjoy Rhimes' newer work. Previously, all series of Shonda Rhimes were broadcast on the American channel ABC, and some of them can be found in the Netherlands on Disney +.
The first series that Rhimes and Shondaland made for Netflix was Bridgerton, a costume drama based on the books by Julia Quinn, starring the 19th-century English noble family Bridgerton. There have already been two seasons and the series is a success. So successful that a third and fourth season have already been announced, and the spin-off Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story can also be seen on Netflix from the 4th of May!
Another Rhimes series on Netflix is the miniseries Inventing Anna, based on a true story in which a Russian con artist managed to pass himself off as a wealthy German heir in New York's upper social circles for years. Despite the fact that protagonist Julia Garner has received several nominations and awards for her role, this series was nominated for the most disappointing series during the previous Series of the Year election. This may have to do with the slow pace. Still, I hope we can watch plenty of other Rhimes series on Netflix in the future.
