This article was originally published on The Conversation. "Bridgerton," Netflix's lush adaptation of Julia Quinn's historical romance series, has been viewed by 63 million households since its Dec. 25 premiere, and is Netflix's fifth biggest original series debut. On the surface, this is unsurprising — "Bridgerton" is executive produced by Shonda Rhimes, the mastermind behind hit shows "Scandal" (2012-18) and "Grey's Anatomy" (2005–). Advertisement: But "Bridgerton" is also unusual. Its source material is a mass market romance series, a genre largely ignored for screen adaptation. There are several likely reasons why TV has snubbed romance fiction. Although a billion-dollar industry, romance fiction is regularly dismissed as trashy, formulaic, and poorly written by people ill-acquainted with the genre.