Sparkling Cyanide (1983)

There’s no two ways about it — Bridgerton is horny.

Shondaland’s newest venture- released on Netflix on Christmas- is certainly a spectacle to behold, just as the premise; essentially an Austenian, Regency-Era Gossip Girl, helmed by Shonda Rhimes, the reigning queen of steamy romance television. It would not be inaccurate to describe it as Jane Austen porn.

The series follows the eight Bridgerton siblings, a well-to-do family living in posh Grosvenor Square in London in the summer of 1813, and each of their dalliances in love. Primarily, however, the show follows the budding romance between Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), the eldest daughter and the proclaimed “diamond of the season,” and Simon Basset, the brooding Duke of Hastings (played by the immeasurably gorgeous Regé-Jean Page). What begins as a classic fake-dating trope eventually grows into real feelings between the two, complicated by the fact that Simon swore to his father on his deathbed that he would never have children, ensuring that the Hastings line ends with him, in a complicated revenge against his cruel father.