<Tr> <Th> Website </Th> <Td> www.hulu.com/the-handmaids-tale </Td> </Tr> <P> The Handmaid's Tale is an American television series created by Bruce Miller based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood . It was ordered by streaming service Hulu with a straight - to - series order of 10 episodes, with the production beginning in late 2016 . </P> <P> The first three episodes of the series premiered on April 26, 2017, with the subsequent seven episodes added on a weekly basis every Wednesday . In May 2017, it was renewed for a second season to premiere in April 2018 . The series received critical acclaim and won eight Primetime Emmy Awards from thirteen nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series . It is the first series on a streaming platform to win an Emmy for Outstanding Series . </P> <P> In the near future, human fertility rates collapse as a result of sexually transmitted diseases and environmental pollution . With this chaos in place, 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 with their male masters in order to become pregnant and bear children for those men and their wives . </P>

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