Shōgun’s coming back for season 2, but no one’s quite sure how just yet

polygon.com:

Shōgunis an early contender for 2024’s best TV show. The series, which debuted in February, is smart, complicated, tremendously well made, beautifully acted, and the most watched FX series ever, according to a press release from the network. All of which makes Thursday’s announcement that the show is coming back for more season pretty unsurprising. The only question that remains is what exactly those seasons are going to be about.

According to FX’s announcement, the series is coming back for two additional seasons. Development on the new seasons will begin soon, with work taking place between FX and the estate of original Shōgun author, James Clavell. The upcoming seasons will also bring back many of the key talents behind season 1, including co-creators, showrunners, executive producers, and writers, Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo, as well as executive producer Michaela Clavell, and producer and series star Hiroyuki Sanada, who played Lord Yoshii Toranaga in season 1.

Shōgun’s first season is an adaptation of James Clavell’s novel of the same name, which was originally released in 1975. The show’s first season adapts Clavell’s entire (very long) novel, which leaves the question of what exactly it will cover in its next two seasons up for debate.

One possible option for the show could be looking to Clavell’s other work for inspiration. While Shōgun is unquestionably the most popular of the books, Clavell actually wrote three more novels in his Asian Saga, with Shōgun being the first chronologically. He also wrote Tai-Pan, a book about two traders venturing into Hong Kong in the 1840s after the First Opium War, Gai-Jin, a sequel to Tai-Pan set 20 years later and mostly in Japan, and Noble House, which is set back in Hong Kong in 1963.

This variety of novels could provide a solid basis for several seasons, each taking place in a distinct time and place. However, this would bring with it plenty of other problems including issues of cultural accuracy. Both Marks and