The first season of hit drama series Shōgun is set to conclude tonight (April 23), but will there be a second season? Read on for all of the latest info.
The ten-episode first series premiered back on February 27, and the climactic final episode airs tonight. It is available to be streamed via Hulu and FX in the United States. UK viewers, meanwhile, can watch the show via Disney+.
Shōgun depicts Japan in the year 1600, and some have labelled the series as the “new Game of Thrones”. In it, Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) is fighting for his life as his enemies unite against him, when a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby village, where the character of John Blackthorne (Jarvis) is introduced.
The historical drama is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by James Clavell, which had previously been adapted into a 1980 American miniseries. This version has been overseen by the husband-and-wife creative team of Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, the latter of whom was a co-writer of Top Gun: Maverick.
Last week’s ninth episode ‘Crimson Sky’ was hailed by some critics as the “best TV episode of the year”.
Will there be a Shōgun season two?
Given that the show is based on a pre-existing novel, and the 10 episodes cover the entire narrative span of the book, there is not much room for manoeuvre when it comes to a second season.
The show’s co-creator and producer Justin Marks has appeared to confirm that there will be no season two when he spoke to The Hollywood Reporter.
“We took the story to the end of the book and put a period at the end of that sentence,” he said. “We love how the book ends; it was one of the reasons why we both knew we wanted to do it — and we ended in exactly that place. And I’ve been party to this in the past with shows like this, where you build a whole factory, and it only pumps out 10 cars and closes up shop. It’s a bummer.”
Clavell did write five further books in his ‘Asian Saga’, each one taking on a different time period in the histories of countries including Iran and Hong Kong. If the producers wanted to pursue one of those novels as a spiritual successor to Shōgun, then that option is open, although it would be made as an entirely separate production.
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