10 Shondaland TV Shows That Didn’t Soar to Success
You only need nine digits to illustrate Shonda Rhimes’ success on the small screen: specifically, the nine-digit sum her Netflix contract is worth.
After creating the hits Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal for ABC, Rhimes landed a Netflix deal that made her, in her words, the “highest-paid showrunner in television.” And after the Rhimes-produced Bridgerton made big business for Netflix, Rhimes re-upped with the streamer in 2021 in a renewed deal valued in the $300-to-400 million range.
Like anyone else in the TV biz, however, Rhimes and producing partner Betsy Beers have had their share of setbacks with their company, Shondaland. The medical drama Off the Map went, well, off the map 15 years ago, on April 6, 2011, despite a cast stacked with familiar (and, yes, good-looking) faces. Read on for details on that Shondaland project and others that faltered.
Inside the Box (2009)
A Washington network newsroom seems like a perfect setting for a Shondaland workplace drama, but this ABC project, scripted by Richard Robbins and starring Indira Varma (pictured here) as a news bureau chief, only reached the pilot stage. Still, it may have put future Grey’s stars on Rhimes’ radar, as the cast included Jason George, Sarah Drew, Kim Raver, and Martin Henderson.
Off the Map (2011)
After Inside the Box, George and Henderson joined the ensemble cast of this ABC medical drama. Created by Grey’s scribe Jenna Bans, Off the Map also boasted life-saving action, this time in a remote South American village. Off the Map dropped off the airwaves after 13 episodes.
The Catch (2016–2017)
Kate Atkinson, Helen Gregory, and Jennifer Schur created this ABC comedy-drama, which starred Mireille Enos and Peter Krause as, respectively, a Los Angeles private eye and the fiancé who conned her. This game of Catch only lasted two seasons, unfortunately.
Still Star-Crossed (2017)
“Star-crossed,” indeed. Scandal writer Heather Mitchell adapted a Melinda Taub YA novel into this period drama, which imagines another Capulet-Montague romance after the events of Romeo & Juliet. ABC exited that fair Verona scene, however, after a sole seven-episode season.
For the People (2018–2019)
Scandal writer Paul William Davies created an ABC drama following young prosecutors and public defenders. (Think Grey’s Anatomy but in the law world.) For the People, alas, was not for the people, as it only lasted for two seasons, though it did feature future Bridgerton heartthrob Regé-Jean Page.
The Residence (2025)
Shondaland produced another Davies-penned script with this mystery-comedy, which starred Uzo Aduba as a birder and police consultant solving a murder at the White House, but Netflix impeached the show after one season. (Fun fact: The source material was Kate Andersen Brower’s The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House, a nonfiction book that, it should be noted, was not a murder mystery.)
Three ABC projects
When Rhimes was still at ABC, Shondaland developed Lawless, an untitled Dana Calvo project, and Adult Behavior for the broadcast network. Lawless, written by KJ Steinberg, would have been a legal drama about a maverick lawyer returning to her hometown to atone for past wrongs. The Dana Calvo project would have been a Miami-based cop drama with an unorthodox detective and his methodical new partner. And Adult Behavior, from The Catch, from former Grey’s writer Allan Heinberg (pictured here would have been a comedic drama inspired by the British TV shows Cucumber and Banana.
One cable TV show
Rhimes’ ABC deal also enabled her to develop cable TV projects through the ABC Signature division. One of those projects was a comedy series based on Luvvie Ajayi’s I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, per Deadline.
In that collection of essays, Ajayi (pictured here) “passes on lessons and side-eyes on life, social media, culture, and fame, from addressing those terrible friends we all have to serious discussions of race and media representation to what to do about your fool cousin sharing casket pictures from Grandma’s wake on Facebook,” according to its synopsis.
Bonus: Possibly these Netflix projects, too
It’s clear we won’t see any of those unproduced linear TV projects from Shondaland — since Rhimes’ ABC era is long over — but there might be hope for a handful of projects the company previously set up at Netflix.
In 2018, Netflix announced Shondaland’s first slate of series for the streamer, which included The Warmth of Other Suns, an adaptation of the Isabel Wilkerson nonfiction book about the Great Migration; Pico & Sepulveda, a story set in the 1840s-era Mexican state of California; Sunshine Scouts, a dark comedy about teenage campers surviving an apocalyptic disaster; and an adaptation of Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, a memoir by Silicon Valley whistleblower Ellen K. Pao (pictured here).
Later that year, Netflix acquired rights to Blake Crouch’s Recursion — a sci-fi novel imagining technology that allows people to rewrite their lives — for both Shondaland and Matt Reeves’ 6th & Idaho production company to adapt into a film and a television universe.
And in 2019, Netflix heralded the development of Notes on Love, a Shondaland episodic anthology series that “explores the unexpected, life-changing, euphoric, hilarious, surreal, and all-consuming places where love intersects with our lives.”
10 Shondaland TV Shows That Didn’t Soar to Success
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