Shonda Rhimes' New Netflix Series Sounds Like Black Mirror Meets Grey's Anatomy

What if you combined Black Mirror and Grey’s Anatomy? Well, it seems you’d get Shonda Rhimes’ new Netflix series Recursion. Rhimes is creating a movie and “a television universe” based on the upcoming Blake Crouch sci-fi novel Recursion, which will be released next June. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the book looks at a brilliant female scientist who invents technology that will allow people to reinvent their most visceral memories and, in some cases, rewrite their entire lives. What could possibly go wrong?

While Recursion may sound much different than what Rhimes is known for, she says it’s exactly what she wants to be doing right now. "Projects like this are why I came to Netflix,” Rhimes said in a statement. “The opportunity to explore a multi-genre universe in innovative ways is extremely exciting.”

What might be even more exciting about this project is that it’s a female-empowering sci-fi thriller. “@shondarhimes is helping to develop a sci-fi thriller focused on a brilliant female scientist,” the Twitter account @StrongBlackLead wrote. “This is why we love her... HERE FOR IT.” The next question is: Who will be Recursion’s lead?

For this project, Rhimes will get producing help from Matt Reeves, who directed the Planet of The Apes reboot and promises Crouch’s “mind-bending novel” is expansive enough to warrant so much content.

It’s true that Crouch’s work has made for entertaining TV before. Crouch is the writer behind the Wayword Pines trilogy, which inspired Fox TV series of the same name. His novellas also inspired Michelle Dockery’s TNT series Good Behavior, which just finished its second season. Crouch is also slated to write the script for a film based on his 2016 best-selling sci-fi thriller Dark Matter.

Rhimes is certainly keeping herself busy after signing a multi-year production deal that will have her leaving ABC for Netflix. (Don’t worry, Grey’s Anatomy will be fine.) Back in July, Rhimes announced she’ll be working on eight new series including a show about foul-mouthed girl scouts called Sunshine Scouts, an adaptation of Ellen Pao’s memoir about taking on Silicon Valley, and a series based on a New York story about everyone’s favourite summer of scam artist Anna Delvey. Clearly, Rhimes’ years of saying yes have paid off for all of us.