Bridgerton, the first Shonda Rhimes show to hit Netflix, dares to ask: “What if a Jane Austen–style period drama…but soft-core porn?”

The smash hit series, executive-produced by Rhimes, created by Chris Van Dusen, and based on the romance novels by Julia Quinn, doesn’t so much mimic Austen as it parodies our cultural fantasies about rich Brits in the late 18th century. The show cheerfully maximises everything that’s beloved in period-piece fantasies—the mansions are grander, the balls are more decadent, the marriage market is a human stock market, and coy glances have been replaced with slurp-y cunnilingus.