<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 2018 . The series garnered extremely positive reviews and won the 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, along with seven other Emmy Awards from thirteen nominations . </P> <P> In the near future, 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> <P> June Osborne, renamed Offred (Elisabeth Moss), is the Handmaid assigned to the home of Gileadan Commander Fred Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife Serena Joy (Yvonne Strahovski). She is subject to the strictest rules and constant scrutiny; an improper word or deed on her part can lead to her execution . Offred, who is named after her male master like all Handmaids, can remember the "time before", when she was married with a daughter and had her own name and identity, but all she can safely do now is follow the rules of Gilead in the hope that she can someday live free and be reunited with her daughter . The Waterfords, key players in the rise of Gilead, have their own conflicts with the realities of the society they have helped create . </P>

Where does the handmaid's tale show take place