'Bridgerton's' second season set for March 25

"Bridgerton," the Netflix hit that shattered streaming records its first season, will return for a second season on March 25, the service announced late Friday.

The first Netflix series from Shondaland — Chris Van Dusen, its showrunner, is a longtime associate of Shonda Rhimes — "Bridgerton" is based on Julia Quinn's eight-novel series about the sprawling Regency-era Bridgerton clan.

Each novel (and TV season) follows one member of the clan's trip to the altar. That first trip (Daphne Bridgerton — Phoebe Dynevor — and Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings — Regé-Jean Page) was quite the sensation: 625 million hours viewed in the first month after the Dec. 25, 2020, launch, eclipsing the third season of "Stranger Things." By the end of January 2021, "Bridgerton" had become Netflix's most-viewed series ever. (That record was demolished last fall by "Squid Games": 1.65 billion hours in its first month.)

The Daphne/Basset story line will be dropped in the second season, replaced by Lord Anthony Bridgerton's (Jonathan Bailey) search for a spouse — presumably, newcomer Kate Sharma (Simone Ashley), who arrives in London with her younger sister Edwina (Charithra Chandran) from India.

Ashley, a regular on Netflix's "Sex Education," is expected to recur on that series' fourth season.