BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – Let’s just go ahead and make it official. “Thursday” should be renamed “Shonday.”
At least it should on ABC, which has handed its entire Thursday prime-time schedule to drama doyenne Shonda Rhimes.
Starting this week at 8 p.m. EDT, it’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” with Rhimes the showrunner for this medical melodrama’s 11th season. At 9 p.m., “Scandal” begins its fourth year with Rhimes also serving as showrunner.
Then, closing out Shonday at 10 p.m., “How To Get Away With Murder” premieres with Viola Davis as a rife-with-mystery criminal lawyer who apparently will do anything to spring her clients and who, as a law professor, trains her students to do the same.
Unlike the other two series, created by Rhimes, “Murder” was masterminded by Pete Nowalk, whose producing credits include “Grey’s” and “Scandal.” On this wicked new addition to the ShondaLand portfolio, Rhimes will serve “only” as executive producer: “I’m like the grandmother,” she joked. “I hold the baby, then I give it back.”