As one of the best shows of 2024, it was nonetheless surprising that Shōgun, was renewed for a second season. The series is based on a book of the same name, and the show’s first season exhausted that story. At the 2025 Critics’ Choice Awards, star Hiroyuki Sanada and showrunners Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks spoke with Deadline about the upcoming season, suggesting that viewers may be surprised by how the show unfolds.
“We’re coming out of the writers room now. We’re also done with the 10 episodes and we have our finale now. That’s allowing us to start figuring out how we’re going to shoot this. But we’re very excited about the plan,” Marks said. “I think the thing to take away, more than anything, is how, I hope people are going to be surprised with some of the big ideas as soon as the first episode of part two. So, we’ll start there and see where it takes us for future stories. But we’re really excited about it, especially for [Hiroyuki Sanada].”
The show has been renewed for a second and third season, but there’s still no firm release date for either season. It seems like the second season still has to film, which makes it unlikely that we’ll see it before the end of 2025.
Sanada won for Best Actor in a Drama Series at the Critics’ Choice Awards, and suggested that he’s excited to his character Toranaga in power in the second season.
“In Season 1, [Toranaga] didn’t become a Shōgun yet. So, I’d like to see him become the leader of Japan. That is my hope,” he said.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.