Shonda Rhimes’s ‘Bridgerton’ is a win for the old model of TV

Follow Us Get the newsletter Shonda Rhimes's new show "Bridgerton" is Netflix's latest breakout hit, and its fifth-most popular new show of all-time. We can all make fun of the way Netflix measures a view, counting anyone who watches at least two minutes. But look past the meaningless metric to what it really means: among all of the new series Netflix has released over the past few years, "Bridgerton" was the fifth most popular in its first month. When Rhimes agreed to her deal with Netflix in 2017, she was the first  super-producer to decamp from traditional studios for the streaming service. She paved the way for Ryan Murphy, Kenya Barris and many others. But then she took three years to deliver her first show. Netflix wasn't happy about the delay, and Hollywood executives were rumbling about all the money Netflix wasted on Rhimes. Who is grumbling now? Murphy has produced three shows and a few movies for Netflix, all of them forgettable. Barris made one show, equally forgettable. And "Bridgerton" was the most popular TV show in the world for the holidays. The success of "Bridgerton" is a testament to a bygone concept in modern media: quality over quantity. Rhimes made her name in Hollywood by creating "Grey's Anatomy," the romance-fueled medical show that gave the world McDreamy and McSteamy. "Grey's" debuted in 2005, smack in the middle of the golden age of TV, a period that stretched from HBO's release of "Oz," "The Sopranos" and "The Wire" to the day Netflix released "House of Cards." During this 15-year period, many of the best writers in Hollywood shifted from movies to TV and brought a new level of prestige to the small screen. The best showrunners of this era, such as David Chase ("The Sopranos") and Vince GiIligan ("Breaking Bad") worked on one show at a time, crafting a world or a character that burrowed itself into our collective brains for years. They did not see the end game as producing five adequate shows, but one great one. There have always been TV producers like Dick Wolf who built miniature empires, overseeing multiple shows at the same time. But even then, they typically worked on a couple of shows at the same time. They never strayed too far from the process of creation. The internet era has warped this dynamic, and not just in TV. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch and TikTok reward people who post a lot. Daniel EK, the CEO of Spotify, suggested some musicians weren't making much money because they didn't release enough music. YouTube creators often have to take breaks or quit all together because of burnout. This demand for greater productivity has infected Hollywood as well, transforming the golden age of TV into the age of peak TV. Netflix thrives not by creating a couple of shows that it nurses over a period of months, but by creating a platform spitting out new and different shows every day. That's why it has prioritized overall deals with prodigious showrunners like Murphy and Rhimes, who managed multiple shows at the same time. The biggest producers working today have embraced the volume approach. Greg Berlanti has 20 TV shows on the air right now. Murphy is producing at least a half dozen shows, and also produced three movies that debuted in 2020. Wolf, the creator of "Law & Order," is now up to six shows at the same time. Netflix's rivals have derided its approach, and insisted their companies would stay committed to quality by paying extra attention to creative development. And yet, the Netflix model seems to have won. HBO Max is releasing a new show seemingly every other day and Disney is planning a new Star Wars, Marvel or Pixar installment almost every week. These services are all competing to be the app you open at the end of the day. Rhimes has resisted the demands of the mega-corporation, at least for the time being. 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