Shonda Rhimes Is TV Drama Royalty – Here’s Every Show She’s Worked On

This flagship 2005 Shonda Rhimes show has grown into a decades-long pop culture phenomenon, turning Rhimes into household name. Set in a teaching hospital in Seattle, the show follows the professional and personal lives of a group of surgeons, from ambitious young interns to experienced, groundbreaking pros. At the centre of it all is Meredith Grey, the daughter of a surgical legend who’s looking to get out from under her mother’s shadow. Over the course of many years, doctors come and go and lives change forever as these surgeons realise that they can fix pretty much anything except their own hearts. The series is still running as of 2022, in its 18th season!

The first “Grey’s” spinoff to hit the air in 2007, “Private Practice” took neonatal surgeon Addison Montgomery out of Seattle. After her ex-husband Derek had found new love with Meredith Grey, Addison decides to leave Seattle and head down the coast to Los Angeles to restart her life. Reuniting with some old friends, Addison joins their medical practice and begins pursuing her own dreams, from new surgical pursuits to her hopes of having a family of her own. It ran for six seasons, ending in 2013.

While the “Grey’s Anatomy” universe largely sticks to traditional medical settings, “Off the Map” takes all the medical and personal drama, and moves it to a remote clinic in South America. Each of the doctors working there has their own reasons for being there, with secrets in their past and present that define how they live and practice medicine. It’s packed with all the same interpersonal drama and heart-wrenching decisions that you’d expect. Unfortunately, the series was cancelled after just one season in 2011.

Rhimes took a break from the medical world and launched a new kind of must-watch TV with the perfectly-titled 2012 hit, “Scandal.” Centering on Olivia Pope, a high-powered DC fixer, and her team of associates, the show follows its characters through wildly twisty, high-stakes plots that range from minor political scandals to world-shattering conspiracies. Through it all, Olivia has to deal with plenty of personal complications too, from a deeply dangerous parent to a long-running, tormented affair with the President of the United States. “Scandal” signed off in 2018, after seven seasons on the air.

In 2014, Rhimes produced this buzzy, high-drama series that put a new spin on the world of legal dramas. Annalise Keating is a law professor with a fearsome reputation who, along with five of her students, becomes entangled in a murder case. However, this investigation is just the beginning of the messy, complicated path that these lawyers take over the course of six seasons. With criminal plots, shocking deaths, steamy hookups, and betrayal after betrayal, it’s a truly wild ride from start to finish.

The cat-and-mouse game between a determined private investigator and the con man ex who tricked her forms the backbone of 2016’s “The Catch.” After she finds out that her fiancé defrauded and abandoned her, PI Alice sets out to track him down and bring him to justice. Along the way, she learns more about the bigger crime ring that he’s a part of, one with high stakes and an international scope. The show ended in 2017 after just two seasons.

This ongoing 2018 “Grey’s Anatomy” spin-off follows the lives of Seattle’s finest firefighters, primarily the team at Station 19, where former “Grey’s” doc Ben Warren works as a first responder. Like “Grey’s” before it, the team is full of big personalities: the daughter of a professional legend, an ambitious ex-Olympian, a still-mourning widower, an energetic rookie, and more. Plus, the show frequently crosses over with the “Grey’s” mothership, making it an engrossing watch for those who enjoy the universe Rhonda created through “Grey’s.”

Rhimes definitely knows how to build a pop culture phenomenon, which she proved yet again by producing Netflix’s 2020 adaptation of Julia Quinn’s historical romance novels. Set in an alternate, heightened version of 1800s England, the show follows the romance trials and triumphs of the wealthy Bridgerton family. The first season follows Daphne, the eldest daughter, who is seen as the “diamond” of the season and enters a fake-dating relationship with Simon, a duke with a painful past. Season two centres on eldest son Anthony, his decision to make a “suitable” and unemotional choice of wife, and how he finds himself head over heels in love despite his best efforts.

For her latest TV project, Rhimes turned to a true story. “Inventing Anna” is a semi-fictional take on the story of Anna Delvey, aka Anna Sorokin, who pretended to be a fabulously rich German heiress in order to scam businesses and acquaintances out of money, clothes, trips, and more. The 2022 miniseries follows Anna’s scams, her eventual exposure by a determined journalist, and what happens once the truth of her story is revealed.