James Clavell’s 1975 novel Shōgun runs a whopping 1152 pages. The first time it was adapted into a TV miniseries, in 1980, they banged the whole thing out in five episodes. Mind you, those episodes were nearly two hours each, totaling nine hours and change. The book’s inspired a new limited series (as they call miniseries nowadays), which bowed its first two episodes today. But how many episodes will it take to get through the Clavell now?
The answer: 10. The difference is that each episode is between 60 and 75 minutes, meaning it will probably wind up being only slightly longer than the previous TV adaptation — 10, maybe 11 hours total, depending on how long each episode is. In other words, it’s about an hour per every hundred pages of the tome.
Shōgun has been earning raves, with some calling it the next Game of Thrones. Here’s how Uproxx previously described Shōgun’s plot:
The expansive story follows the outbreak of a 1600s civil war and also revolves around the accounts of an English ship captain, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), whose shop becomes marooned, which is the first step in him becoming pivotal in the conflict, particularly on the side of Lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), whose rule has been dragged into chaos by an opposing Council of Regents (i.e., “vultures”). However, Blackthorne and Toranaga must rely upon a translator, Toda Mariko (Anna Sawai), who is no mere impartial party.
The 1980 Shōgun was a massive hit, turning its star Richard Chamberlain — already a fixture of television — into the era’s king of miniseries. The trashy The Thorn Birds was soon to follow. That Shōgun, which also features the legendary Toshiro Mifune, is not available to stream but is on Blu-ray.
New episodes of Shōgun will drop every Wednesday on Hulu and Disney+ as well as on FX.