The first season of Shōgun, a historical drama based on James Clavell's novel, was the most-watched series in the history of FX. And why not? It was great.
FX has decided to go ahead with a second season of Shōgun, which is dicey because the first covered the entirety of Clavell's novel. Deadline now reports that the new season will be set 10 years after the end of the first, when Japanese feudal Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) faced down his enemies in an attempt to unite Japan under one Shogunate. He had help from John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), an English ship pilot who washes ashore in Japan in the first episode. FX says the new season “continues the historically-inspired saga of these two men from different worlds whose fates are inextricably entwined."
Obviously both Sanada and Jarvis will be back, with Sanada upgraded from producer to executive producer and Jarvis joining the producing team as a co-executive producer. There'll be a lot of production going on. FX says the new season will be “will be “a wholly original new chapter to the first season,” confirming that the show is taking things well and truly off-book.
Series creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks did a wonderful job with the first season, although there they had the benefit of some great source material. I'm a little concerned for them now that they're forging their own path. I'm one of the annoying fans who wonders why they didn't adapt another book from Clavell's Asian saga; that would have meant casting a whole new set of characters, since each book is set generations apart, but it would give them a solid foundation. But I also want to see what happens with the characters I got to know in the first season of Shōgun, so I'm torn.
Whatever, we all know I'll be watching this. Filming on season 2 gets underway in Vancouver (yes, Canada stands in for Japan) next January, so I probably won't be watching it for a while; 2027 sounds like a good possibility.
There's also talk of making a third (and probably final) season of Shōgun down the line, although FX isn't committing to anything just yet.
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