Shōgun proves you don’t need dragons and bare bottoms for compelling drama

It’s official: cheap, violent thrills are out; detailed trade negotiations are in. Shōgun’s Emmy-winning haul suggests cerebral viewing is back in vogue

Zoe William

Tuesday 17 September 2024

Afriend who works in TV explained to me once how Game of Thrones had ruined our attention spans, packing in too much event. Dragons, nakedness, intrigue, gore – ooh, new place, where are we again? – monsters, weather, foreboding, jousts … as much went on in any given five minutes as would normally sustain a show for a whole season. Relatedly, the rest of television felt unbearably slow. Perfectly good dramas were all of a sudden like eating bran or taking medicine. “How in God’s name are those two adversaries still conversing?” you’d think, watching, I don’t know, House of Cards. “Why can’t one of them simply melt a cauldron of gold and use it to drown the other?”

For a long time, GoT didn’t just win some Emmys, it won all of them. Starting with Peter Dinklage, who won best supporting actor in 2011, more or less everyone in it was best supporting something. It was the outstanding drama, but also had the best sound, the best credits, the best prosthetics; it was the best sci-fi/fantasy. By 2016, it was the most Emmy-decorated show in history. It was almost as if that august awards body were surrendering to a new normal: that’s what box sets are now – an immense amount of stuff must occur; nothing less will do.

Then along comes Shōgun, last night’s Emmy winner: the first non-English-language show ever to take best drama. It’s set in 1600 and there are no dragons at all, but there’s quite a lot of detailed trading negotiation. There are multiple fiefdoms, but they mainly agree with each other. There’s a lot of romance, but it’s thin on the nudity. A large amount is conveyed by beseeching looks, which go on for ages. There are definitely plot points where you think, “It would be helpful to know more about Portuguese imperialism, and trading routes, and samurai, and the sea. Also: pheasants, and sake, and Christianity, and Shinto.” It is peerlessly beautiful to look at, but there is no question at all that this is a show for people who can sit still and listen.

So, Game of Thrones did not ruin audiences. It was just a little high-energy interlude, and our collective concentration remained intact.

• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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