<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Website </Td> </Tr> <P> The Handmaid's Tale is an American web television series created by Bruce Miller, based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood . It was ordered by the streaming service Hulu as a straight - to - series order of 10 episodes, for which production began in late 2016 . The plot follows a dystopian future following a Second American Civil War wherein women, called "Handmaids", are forced into sexual and child - bearing servitude . </P> <P> The first three episodes of the series premiered on April 26, 2017; the subsequent seven episodes aired on a weekly basis every Wednesday . In May 2017, the series was renewed for a second season scheduled to premiere on April 25, 2018 . The Handmaid's Tale received widespread critical acclaim and won eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 13 nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, becoming the first series on a streaming platform to win an Emmy for Outstanding Series . It also won Golden Globe Awards for Best Television Series--Drama and Best Actress for Elisabeth Moss . </P> <P> In the near future, fertility rates collapse as a result of sexually transmitted diseases and environmental pollution . With this chaos, the totalitarian, Christian theonomic government of "Gilead" establishes rule in the former United States in the aftermath of a civil war . Society is organized by power - hungry leaders along a new, militarized, hierarchical regime of fanaticism and newly created social classes, in which women are brutally subjugated, and by law are not allowed to work, own property, handle money, or read . Worldwide infertility has resulted in the conscription of the few remaining fertile women in Gilead, called "Handmaids", according to an extremist interpretation of a Biblical account . They are assigned to the homes of the ruling elite, where they must submit to ritualized rape by their male masters in order to become pregnant and bear children for those men and their wives . </P>

When does a new handmaid's tale come out