JuicyTalk
While there are plenty of great sci-fi shows for viewers to choose from in 2026, one Hulu hit was such a success that the streaming series managed to earn itself six seasons and a spinoff. The ‘60s were a golden age of small-screen sci-fi shows thanks to classics like CBS’s The Twilight Zone and Star Trek: The Original Series. However, as controversial a claim as it may be, there’s an argument to be made that the 2020s are the greatest era ever for sci-fi TV.
Although ambitious shows like Prime Video’s The Peripheral have regrettably been canceled before their time, the advent of streaming services has resulted in a tidal wave of unapologetically complex sci-fi shows across the genre. For fans of space operas, there is Apple TV’s Asimov adaptation Foundation, the upcoming The Expanse follow-up The Captive’s War, and the many new additions to the Star Trek franchise, including Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Picard.
For fans of dystopian sci-fi, there is Apple TV’s Silo, Hulu’s Paradise, and the same streaming service’s acclaimed Margaret Atwood adaptation. Debuting in 2017 to rave reviews, Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale starred Elisabeth Moss as June Osborne, a woman who is kidnapped and forced to become a Handmaid in the totalitarian Republic of Gilead. A patriarchal theocracy where the bodies of female citizens are used as incubators for the heirs of the elite without their consent, the Republic of Gilead is a nightmarish future version of the United States.
The Handmaid’s Tale Expanded The Original Novel’s Story Radically
When June is forced to become one such “Handmaid,” she is renamed Offred and enslaved by Joseph Fiennes’ Commander Fred Waterford, a pivotal figure in the creation of Gilead. While Atwood’s original epistolary novel was a huge critical and commercial success, the slight volume only chronicles June’s enslavement, ending when she escapes for the Canadian border.
As such, everything after the season 1 finale of The Handmaid’s Tale is an original story that expands on the sparse book to illustrate more of Gilead’s dystopian society and culture. If Atwood’s original novel is a chilling story of how easily theocratic despots can gradually strip away civil liberties and establish dictatorships, the Hulu series is as much a depiction of how determined activists can deconstruct fascist states through acts of subterfuge, espionage, and terrorism.
June and her fellow freedom fighters battle to take down Gilead’s ruling class as the grim sci-fi series continues. Meanwhile, the Hulu show itself gradually opens up its story to explore more characters across the social strata of its fascist setting.
The Testaments Turned Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale Into A Full-Blown Franchise
While dystopian shows like Netflix’s Altered Carbon focus mostly on the ways that technology alters the lives of humans in their imagined futures, The Handmaid’s Tale is more concerned with the ways in which existing social ills like patriarchy and class division are deepened and exacerbated by nascent fascism. The show’s radical expansion of Atwood’s original story set up its spinoff perfectly, as the author released a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments, in 2019.
Taking place after the events of the original novel and show, The Testaments was met with critical acclaim in 2019 and adapted as a sequel series by Hulu in 2026. This spinoff turned the show into a full-blown franchise, with One Battle After Another’s Chase Infiniti playing the protagonist of the new series, Agnes MacKenzie. Although the Hulu spinoff picks up 15 years after the original novel ended, the original show’s series finale sets up the events of The Testaments seamlessly.
Like sci-fi’s answer to The Wire, the six-season masterpiece The Expanse, The Testaments attempts to open up the world of its setting even further, exploring the complex and multifaceted inner machinations of the Republic of Gilead. While this approach proved stifling for some critics, who already found the slow burn approach of The Handmaid’s Tale too patient, fans of the original series were rewarded with a fitting expansion in The Testaments.
- Release Date
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2017 – 2025-00-00
- Network
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Hulu
- Showrunner
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Bruce Miller
- Directors
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Mike Barker, Kari Skogland, Daina Reid, Reed Morano, Floria Sigismondi, Jeremy Podeswa, Kate Dennis, Richard Shepard, Amma Asante, Christina Choe, Deniz Gamze Ergüven, Bradley Whitford, Dearbhla Walsh, Liz Garbus
- Writers
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Kira Snyder, Eric Tuchman, Yahlin Chang, John Herrera, Jacey Heldrich, Dorothy Fortenberry, Marissa Jo Cerar, Lynn Renee Maxcy
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Elisabeth Moss
June Osborne / Offred / Ofjoseph
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