After literally making billions of dollars for Disney as one of the most successful showrunners at ABC TV, it took their inability to give her a second pass to Disney World to make Shonda Rhimes to just up and quit and move over to Netflix.

Of course this incident was the tip of an iceberg and had followed years of unhappiness on Rhimes’s part but we just like the thought of this mini-melodrama that will affect primetime programming,

Rhimes is responsible for Grey’s Anatomy, its spin-off Private Practice, and the political thriller series Scandal.  Plus has also served as the executive producer of the ABC television series Off the Map, How to Get Away with Murder, The Catch, and Station 19. etc etc.

Now embedded at Netflix Rhimes is heading up 12 projects, the first if which is the period drama Bridgerton that will  arrive in our screens on Christmas Day. It tells the story of the eight Bridgerton siblings as they attempt to navigate the competitive world of Regency London high society.

Starring Jonathan Bailey, Adjoa Andoh and Dame Julie Andrews, the eight-part series is based on Julia Quinn‘s best-selling novels English heartrob Bailey (Broadchurch)  is openly gay and he is set to play   Anthony is the eldest Bridgerton sibling and dutiful head of the family since assuming his late father’s title of Viscount.

The program notes add “Endlessly handsome, charming and rich, he’s quite the catch on this year’s marriage mart. But if he has any hope of fulfilling his oftentimes overwhelming duty of marrying and producing an heir, Anthony must first learn to temper his pursuit of pleasure.”