Adapted from a 2017 Min Jin Lee novel of the same name, Pachinko is one of the most critically acclaimed shows on television, and one of Apple TV+’s best shows. The show’s second just wrapped up on Oct. 11, and in a new interview with Variety, showrunner Soo Hugh said that a third season is very much not guaranteed.
“You call and ask them,” she said during a Q&A about the second season. “We have so many more stories to tell. One of the things that we’re battling is there’s just so many shows out there, right? Our fans are the best fans, and we’ve been blown away by how generous the critics are. But I think it’s just really hard to make noise in this time and space.”
Pachinko is a sprawling epic that tells the story of a Korean family over several generations as they move to Japan and work toward a better life. While the book tells its story linearly, the series has split events up across several periods. In some of those periods, it has already caught up to the novel’s events, while in others, there is more story from the novel that still needs to be told.
Because it’s largely in Korean and Japanese, Pachinko has never had the kind of commercial appeal of some of Apple TV+’s most popular shows. Even so, the series has received overwhelmingly positive reviews for both of its first two seasons. It’s unclear when Apple might make its final determination about whether the show will be back.
