By FX’s “Shōgun” wrapped its ten-episode run the other day and has been an astonishing success for the network.
It had FX’s most viewed premiere on Hulu with nine million views, and has received universal acclaim – snagging a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, 9/10 on IMDb and the second best Metacritic score of the year thus far.
As the series is a complete adaptation of James Clavell’s famed standalone book, it’s designed as a limited series and thus a second season isn’t planned.
Speaking with THR series masterminds Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo say they’re constantly being asked about a season two even though there’s no plans and no idea what kind of story they want to tell. Marks says:
“How do you even equal the roadmap that Clavell laid out? I don’t know if it’s possible. I don’t know if Clavell could have done it, either. That’s probably why he moved on to other books, too, right? He knew what he had done. Yeah, it’s a tough one.”
Marks adds that even the seasonal anthology route of shows like “American Horror Story” and “Fargo” doesn’t work for this material:
“It’s tough because, in Fargo, you’re still telling different threads of the same place, whereas [Clavell’s] The Asian Saga goes all over the place for good reason. So it’s hard. You’re not actually building off that same language in the same way.”
The acclaimed series, which Kondo says took five years to get made, centers on the collision of two ambitious men, an English sailor (Cosmo Jarvis), who is shipwrecked in Japan, and Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a shrewd, powerful Japanese feudal lord.
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