Long before Hulu shows like The Bear and Only Murders in the Building were winning over fans and critics alike as comedies, the streaming service’s biggest show was a drama. The Handmaid’s Tale premiered in 2017 as an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s popular (and chilling) novel of the same name. Since Atwood had only published one book set in the world of Gilead at the time, the show seemed likely to end after one season, and rank as one of Hulu’s best-ever shows. Instead, The Handmaid’s Tale just kept growing for another five seasons, with Elisabeth Moss as the star.
The Handmaid’s Tale TV show was set in a dystopian future version of the United States, when a violent movement transformed the republic into Gilead, a theocracy that punished women in horrific ways. Children were a rarity in Gilead due to a shortage of women who could conceive, leading to the establishment of the “Handmaids.” They were women who could become pregnant, and were forced into horrific circumstances to provide children for the powerful men (and their wives) in Gilead.
June (Moss) slowly but surely gained agency back over the course of the first season, which more or less matched the events of the novel up until the end. Once the show had to start telling its own stories without source material, the scale got a lot bigger.
By the end, The Handmaid’s Tale had run for 66 episodes over six seasons, and was even followed by a spinoff in 2026, called The Testaments. Suffice it to say that the original show was a major success, even if The Testaments season 2 wasn’t already guaranteed to keep the TV universe growing on Hulu. Also based on a novel by Margaret Atwood, it remains to be seen how the spinoff will compare to the original in the long run.
Being Bigger Than The Book Doesn’t Necessarily Make Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale Better
In addition to featuring Elisabeth Moss as June, for which she won her first Emmy in 2017, The Handmaid’s Tale starred Yvonne Strahovski as Serena, Joseph Fiennes as Commander Waterford, Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia, Alexis Bledel as Emily, Madeline Brewer as Janine, Samira Wiley as Moira, O-T Fagbenle as Luke, Max Minghella as Nick, and Bradley Whitford as Commander Lawrence, among others.
The show packed a lot of star power into its six seasons, for better or worse. Even Sydney Sweeney recurred as Eden in season 2, making The Handmaid’s Tale her biggest show before she would debut on HBO’s Euphoria (as a very different character) in 2019. The Emmys continued to accumulate over the years, and The Handmaid’s Tale was certainly a success for Hulu over the years. Opinions were definitely more mixed among fans, however, once every season after the first strayed farther and farther from Atwood’s original novel.
For an idea of just how far Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale went beyond Margaret Atwood’s book, the hardcover version of the book is listed at 320 pages, and the audio book’s run time is listed at just over 11 hours. With most episodes of the TV show running for approximately an hour, it’s no surprise that June’s story went in some wildly different directions the longer The Handmaid’s Tale kept airing new episodes on Hulu. Since viewership numbers are hard to come by for streaming services, it’s worth looking at the show’s Rotten Tomatoes scores to see how opinions changed from season to season:
|
Season |
Critics Score |
Audience Score |
|---|---|---|
|
1 |
94% |
90% |
|
2 |
90% |
83% |
|
3 |
82% |
58% |
|
4 |
69% |
41% |
|
5 |
80% |
25% |
|
6 |
87% |
43% |
The show never reached the same heights as season 1 with either critics or audiences, with a sharp dropoff in seasons 4 and 5. The Handmaid’s Tale did recover somewhat in the sixth and final season, but the numbers indicate that the version that stuck to Margaret Atwood’s book was the show at its peak. The 320-page book seems downright small compared to six seasons and 66 episodes, but longer doesn’t necessarily mean better. After one season, The Testaments is doing reasonably well on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 88% critics score and 81% audience score.