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‘Shōgun’: How a Decade of False Starts, Endless Translation Debates and One Star-Turned-Producer Made a Classic Story Relevant to a 21st Century Audience
Despite countless setbacks over the last decade — including a global pandemic — FX was able to bring ‘Shōgun’ to life, and it might just redefine the miniseries as we know it.
FX has been on a hot streak, enjoying a recent Emmys sweep in the comedy categories with its hit “The Bear,” but “Shōgun” offers the chance to prove that large-scale event series can still draw eyeballs (and, perhaps, awards attention) to the network. Clavell’s bestselling 1975 novel already gave rise to one extremely famous limited series, from back when they were just called miniseries: NBC’s 1980 broadcast of “Shōgun,” told through the eyes of Richard Chamberlain’s Englishman-abroad Blackthorne, earned the network its highest weekly Nielsen ratings in its history. Even without having seen it, though, she had a sense of what road a lesser “Shōgun” might go down: “I didn’t want to sexualize all of the female characters.” (Visits to a teahouse where men can procure affection, on this series, are treated with a light and elegant touch, not a “Memoirs of a Geisha” leer.)
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