How To Get Away With Murder is one of those shows that has a trailer that makes a person stop and pay attention.  The moment you hear Viola Davis, as Annalise Keating, say “or as I like to call it, How To Get Away With Murder,” something in the air seems to change.  Her delivery of the line is so perfect, so captivating, you want to be student in her classroom, and for a brief moment you want the world being created on that screen to be real, because there is something almost hypnotic going on.

Then you remember this is a Shonda Rhimes show.  As in Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy.  Suddenly, with that realization in mind, it is all too easy to go from wishing this world was real to being grateful it is not!  After all, would you want to live in a world where Fitzgerald Grant (Tony Goldwyn) was President of the United States?  Where Sally Langston (Kate Burton) was Vice-President?  Stop and really think about the Washington goings-on of Scandal and ponder if you want that reality?  Take a deep breath and remind yourself that is just the creative workings of Shondaland, and her amazing team.  Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her team are fantastic characters that do not really exist — to our knowledge.

And now, think again about How To Get Away With Murder.   What is the mind that brought us Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal going to do to Law School and the legal system?  I for one can not wait to find out!

The twists and turns of Scandal are so often believable because the show plays fair, leaving bread crumbs, planting clues along the way, and twisting in ways I really do not want them to go and yet, when they do, even as my mind boggles at what comes next, it works.

More than once I have found myself wishing Shonda Rhimes had time to teach a few lessons on plotting twists and turns to the writers of other shows I am watching, shows that are coming close and then falling short of the bar she has set.  Shows that are not bad, but lack that “oh wow” moment that she so often delivers, and credibly at that.

Early in the first season, student Wes will become entangled with his mysterious neighbor, Rebecca (Katie Findlay), after she becomes the main suspect in the murder of a beautiful university coed. Professor Annalise Keating’s involvement with Rebecca’s case will challenge her students’ values, convictions, and dreams, as she teaches them the dark truth about the law and our justice system. It’s worth it though. Working for Annalise is the opportunity of a lifetime, one that can change the course of our students’ lives forever, which is exactly what happens when they find themselves involved in a murder plot that will rock the entire university.

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How To Get Away With Murder premieres Thursday Sept 25, on ABC at 10 PM ET/ 9 PM CT

A two and a half minute first look at the show from ABC: