As Desus and Mero would say, “the brand is strong.” That sentiment certainly applies to the Shondaland Hive.
According to Deadline, Shondaland’s latest series Bridgerton is officially Netflix’s biggest series ever. The alternative history period drama series created by Chris Van Dusen (who also serves as showrunner) is the first series from Shondaland at Netflix, as part of Shonda Rhimes’ (who serves as an executive producer of the series) massive overall deal with the streamer.
Deadline reports:
The final numbers are in, and Season 1 of Bridgerton was watched by a record 82 million households around the world (partially or in its entirety.) That is a whopping 19M households higher than the four-week projection Netflix issued 10 days into the Shondaland series’ run (63 million), at the time the streamer’s fifth biggest launch in history.
Bridgerton, whose massive wave of popularity is showing no signs of subsiding, is now Netflix’s biggest series ever by a wide margin. It pushed down to No.2 previous record holder, fantasy hit The Witcher (76M in its first 28 days).
Have you been living under a rock and have no idea what this show is or is about? In my best Lady Whistledown voice, allow me to introduce the scoop of the trending series, via Netflix’s press release sent to Lady Whist—I mean, The Root:
Inspired by bestselling novels, the series follows Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynover), the eldest daughter of the powerful Bridgerton family and her debut onto Regency London’s marriage market. As her family assess her suitors, the high society scandal sheet written by the mysterious Lady Whistledown stirs drama. Enter the highly desirable and rebellious Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), a committed bachelor and the catch of the season for the debutantes’ mamas…
Naturally, the extremely popular series has been picked up for a second season, which was announced last week.
I, along with just about everyone else who talked about it on Twitter binged the series quickly. It’s scandalous, it’s entertaining, it’s intriguing, it’s a great form of escapism, the Duke of Hastings is unbelievably hot (and so is his not-to-be-forgotten sparring partner Will, portrayed by Martins Imhangbe) and there is plenty of sex (shout-out to escaping the FCC-based restrictions of network TV).
Sure, ABC still has the ongoing success of the long-running Grey’s Anatomy thanks to its loyal fans (again, Shondaland Hive don’t miss!), but you can’t help but wonder how many Disney executives are stewing in their salt in response to this news. What am I talking about? Yeahhhhh somebody at ABC fucked up by not giving their billion-dollar-making creative a damn pass to Disneyland, which ended up being the last straw in a series of network television political headaches she endured. Read all the deets here:
Simply put, you coulda’ (still) had a bad bitch!
Welp.