If you could build anything you wanted in Shondaland, what would you want to see? That’s probably the question Netflix asked Shonda Rhimes, who’s heading to the streaming service with her producing partner Betsy Beers and their production company Shondaland after years of producing shows for ABC. Despite our best efforts to fiercely enunciate and wear nice pantsuits, we ourselves are not Shonda Rhimes and thus can’t predict exactly what she’ll do with the seemingly endless amounts of freedom and money that Netflix provides. We do have a wish list, however, of shows we hope Rhimes might produce. Just send us some popcorn and wine as a thank you.
Smash Season 3
By the time Smash left the air in 2013, it had become so terrible you couldn’t look away. In the hands of someone different, with oodles of Netflix cash and an all-star cast, could it become so good that you can’t look away? This is our goal. We reunite the core cast — Megan Hilty, Debra Messing, scarves — cut a few extraneous characters (sorry, Karen, have fun on season four of Scorpion), and fill in some new musical theater talent: Denée Benton as an ingenue; Leslie Odom Jr. as his Smash character, but now he’s famous; Norm Lewis as himself, but evil; You’re the Worst’s Desmin Borges as a fictionalized version of his face-twin Lin-Manuel Miranda. Now, the producers are trying to create their own musical adaptation of Scandal — cross-promotion, baby! Just wait till you hear Nikki James belt “Twice As Good (and Half As Much).†—Jackson McHenry
Coffee Prince
A Korean drama would make a perfect adaptation for the world of Shondaland: there’s romance, longing looks, and sometimes, a whole gender-confusion situation going on. A personal favorite of mine has always been The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince, where a young woman, Go Eun-chan, is mistaken for a really beautiful young man by a proprietor of a coffee shop where the whole “concept†is really hot guys serving you coffee. (Also, honestly a great idea for a coffee shop.) She needs the money, so she starts working at the coffee shop while pretending to be a man, only to fall in love with the owner (played in the original by Gong Yoo, try not to swoon). The American Shondaland adaptation could go in a lot of different directions, including one where the main character is a trans man going through transition. Our only wish is to cast John Cho as the coffee-shop owner, because he is the rom-com leading man we deserve. —E. Alex Jung
Shonda Rhymes
We all know Shonda can write delicious drama and run a show-business empire, but can she act?! We are about to find out, as Shonda Rhimes will play Shonda Rhymes in a multi-camera family sitcom about a modern female showrunner saying yes to trying to have it all. Oh, and she’s married to Busta Rhymes. That’s why her name is spelled like that. It’s a play on words. I should say, in the reality of the show, Busta Rhymes is his given name. I should also say LeAnn Rimes plays their wacky neighbor, and for some reason everyone refers to each other by their last name. Hijinx ensue, but, at the end of the episode/day, the whole family (and neighbor — LeAnn Rimes) learns a lesson about love and, I don’t know, let’s say, teamwork. Aww. So, that’s this show — Shonda Rhymes. Sounds pretty good. —Jesse David Fox
Something — Anything — With Sandra Oh
Grey’s Anatomy’s strongest seasons were the ones that focused on the Meredith-Cristina friendship, when Cristina had to be cut out of her wedding gown or lectured Mere about being self-reliant. Yang was Rhimes’s favorite and fiercest character, and she credited Oh for realizing her perfectly. Sandra Oh is returning to TV for a BBC drama, but shouldn’t she put that on the shelf to return to Shondaland, where her work was rewarded with a Golden Globe? With Yang’s chapter closed, Oh could move on to being a prickly, emotionally unavailable therapist, an editor, a power publicist — literally anything, just as long as these two collaborators are working together again, crafting a new woman everyone wants to be. —Hunter Harris
Connie Britton, Y’all
We said it once and we’ll say it again: Shondaland and Connie Britton deserve each other. —Tara Abell
The Princess Diaries 3
It’s been rumored for years, and everyone seems to be game, so now there’s only one question left to seal the deal: Is there a better woman to lure Anne Hathaway to Netflix than Shonda Rhimes, writer of The Princess Diaries 2, underrated modern Disney classic? Chris Pine’s already headed for TV — may he and Anne follow their true hearts (and all those dollar signs) and live happily ever after with Shonda at Netflix. —Dee Lockett