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- The Handmaid's Tale just wrapped up its latest season, and there will be only one more season remaining on the show. It will also be interesting to see what the show does to finish things off, as June escaped and is now considering returning to try to face the oppressive government one last time. This slightly changes her role as a look at what happens to a woman in an oppressive society to someone fighting for a cause. While fans will have to wait for the final season to arrive later in 2023, there are still a lot of shows on TV that fans of The Handmaid's Tale should love, both for the theme and the feel of the show.
The holiday season always starts the train of mid-season finales and with the end of so many beloved shows, even the shortened seasons the public has embraced have finally reached their terminus. What is there to do on cold winter nights while the waiting for new seasons continues?
Is it all just game shows and the 24-hour news cycle? Well, for fans who love The Handmaid's Tale, there are a few other shows it might be time to look into. For anyone who has the time to binge this holiday season, do it right.
UPDATE: 2023/01/19 11:30 EST BY SHAWN S. LEALOS
The Handmaid's Tale just wrapped up its latest season, and there will be only one more season remaining on the show. It will also be interesting to see what the show does to finish things off, as June escaped and is now considering returning to try to face the oppressive government one last time. This slightly changes her role as a look at what happens to a woman in an oppressive society to someone fighting for a cause. While fans will have to wait for the final season to arrive later in 2023, there are still a lot of shows on TV that fans of The Handmaid's Tale should love, both for the theme and the feel of the show.
The Americans (2013-2018)
Stream now on Hulu
In The Handmaid's Tale, fans watch a dystopian future where an oppressive government has stripped women of almost all their rights in society. In The Americans, a very different future plays out, and it comes straight out of the old Cold War fears of the 1970s and '80s. Just like The Handmaid's Tale, the show is relentless in the dangers of this look at society.
The show lasted for six seasons and showed, in the end, that fans could cheer for the Soviets living in America as sleeper agents and still see the truth that their lives demanded sacrifice while rewarding none of them, leading to inevitable ruin and destruction.
Harlots (2017-2019)
Stream now on Hulu
While The Handmaid's Tale takes place in a dystopian future, the Hulu series Harlots is a period drama. However, both share similar themes. The Handmaid's Tale shows a society where women are oppressed and have to fight for their rights, Harlots showed women who are also oppressed, and in this case, have a chance to fight against the patriarchy in their society.
Margaret Wells (Samantha Morton) and Lydia Quigley (Lesley Manville) run rival brothels and fight to remain in business and protect their livelihoods. While the women in Handmaid's Tale are forced into sexual situations against their will to help build society, Harlots has the women empowered through sex, and here it is used to often keep these women in power, at least of their own rights.
Orphan Black (2013-2017)
Buy Now on Prime Video & Apple TV
Tatiana Maslany enjoyed her breakout role in the BBC series Orphan Black. The woman who went on to play She-Hulk for the Marvel Cinematic Universe played more than five different characters in this series. She plays Sarah Manning, Alison Hendrix, Cosima Niehaus, Helena, Rachel Duncan, as well as various others, as clones born in 1984 by in vitro fertilization.
The show starts with a con artist named Sarah who witnesses one of her clones die by suicide and this sets into motion an amazing sci-fi story full of twists and turns. When she learns she is a clone and someone wants to kill her and the others, she ends up fighting for her life. Just like Handmaid's Tale, this show takes away the women's control of their bodies and places them in an oppressive system, forcing a fight or flight situation.
Colony (2016-2018)
Stream now on Roku
Colony is a sci-fi drama movie about a dystopian future where an alien invasion already happened and everyone is forced into a military-controlled society. Just like in The Handmaid's Tale, the government strips people of their rights, and in this case, it is everyone oppressed.
The show starred Josh Holloway (Lost) and Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead) as a couple set to battle as part of the secret Resistance. While The Handmaid's Tale is more of a dramatic story about people trying to overcome the ruthless government, Colony is a show that takes a different approach and is more of a sci-fi action series.
Westworld (2016-2022)
Stream now on HBO Max
Westworld has ended on HBO Max, as the HBO-Discovery merger caused the show's cancelation. This will leave many of Westworld's fans with a lot of unanswered questions, but at least four seasons aired of the critically acclaimed series before its end.
The show shares a lot in common with The Handmaid's Tale, especially from the robots' point of view. Created to serve men, and used as entertainment despite a growing intelligence, the robots had no rights and often found themselves killed for no reason before mind wiped. The show then changed to reveal the robots wanting their freedom at any cost, and that is the exact trajectory of The Handmaid's Tale.
Alias Grace (2017)
Stream now on Netflix
The Handmaid's Tale was based on the novel by Margaret Atwood. For fans who loved the novel before watching the show, The Handmaid's Tale is not the only Atwood book translated to the small screen. There is another adaptation of one of her books on Netflix with Alias Grace.
Alias Grace is a miniseries based on a Margaret Atwood historical novel of the same name. The story follows the real-life 1843 murder of Thomas Kinnear and the later conviction of two of his servants, Grace Marks, and James McDermott.
Mad Men (2007-2015)
Stream now on Fubo & AMC+
Anyone who started watching The Handmaid's Tale because of star Elisabeth Moss can see one of her biggest roles in Mad Men. Moss was at her best once again in this series, as she was years before as the first daughter on The West Wing.
Mad Men boasted seven full seasons on AMC, following the antics of those working in advertising in the 1960s. Moss plays Peggy Olson, who rises from secretary to head copywriter. While Moss received acclaim, including two Emmy wins for The Handmaid's Tale, she was just as impressive in Mad Men, pickling up four Emmy nominations for that earlier role.
Black Mirror (2011-)
Stream now on Netflix
Anyone who loved the dystopian story in The Handmaid's Tale should find a lot to love in Black Mirror. The series originated on Channel 4 in Britain before moving to Netflix for American audiences. It is an anthology series, with each story a horror/sci-fi combination surrounding the fear of technology.
With stories from synthetically recreating the dead to recreating everything in society, the series shows how everything in society can go wrong with the wrong tech in people's hands. In anyone felt that things looked bleak in The Handmaid's Tale, Black Mirror showed what would happen if that was just the start.
Cleverman (2016-2017)
Buy Now on Prime Video and Apple TV
Cleverman is a show that many Americans discovered on Netflix, but it is an Australian original series. While The Handmaid's Tale focuses on the possible dystopian plight of fertile females, Cleverman explores racism. In this case, the show focused on a race called "Hairypeople" who possess great strength, speed, and long life.
The show also stars Game of Thrones veteran, Iain Glen, as a successful businessman who is attempting to use the "Hairypeople" for his own nefarious gains. Taking place in a dystopian landscape, it shows the same oppression The Handmaid's Tale focused on, but with a more supernatural twist for the enslaved people.
Game Of Thrones (2011-2019)
Stream now on HBO Max
Fans who watch The Handmaid's Tale based on a love for high-quality television should look to Game of Thrones, which was the best in high-quality TV for years. From the special effects to the acting, the writing was all top-notch. Even the final season has its fans, and there is even now a spinoff series airing on HBO Max.
The show also parallels The Handmaid's Tale, as it explores the abuse of women as well as the problems surrounding their rise to power. It also certainly helps that all eight seasons of the show have been completed. Game of Thrones can be enjoyed without suffering from cliffhangers or waiting for later seasons.
The Man In The High Castle (2015-2019)
Stream now on Prime Video
The Handmaid's Tale showed an alternate history and future for the United States and this is similar to the setup for Prime Video's The Man in the High Castle. Based on the Philip K. Dick novel of the same name, the story follows the fate of the United States should the Axis have won World War II.
The United States is divided between Nazi Germany, taking most of the east, and the Japanese Empire, taking most of the west, with a buffer zone existing between the two powers. The series lasted four seasons and ends up moving into sci-fi territory when it turns out this is an alternate Earth and the people in this society realized it could have all been different - and better.
For All Mankind (2019-)
Stream now on Apple TV
Again, alternate American history takes center stage in the Apple TV series, For All Mankind, created by Ronald D. Moore, of Battlestar Galactica fame. The show asks what history, and the space race, in particular, might have looked like had the Soviet Union beaten the United States to the moon.
For anyone interested in the changing role this might have created for women in the space race, For All Mankind goes into the specifics of how and why women might have become astronauts long before the 1980s.
The 100 (2014-2020)
Stream now on Netflix
The 100 is a show that explores a possible dystopian future for the planet. Due to nuclear radiation making the planet uninhabitable, the remaining human race has spent the last few generations on space stations. The real story of The 100 begins when the powers that be sends 100 imprisoned teenagers to Earth's surface to see if it is inhabitable again after so many years.
One certainly questions the morality behind sending minors on this particular mission, but dystopian worlds are all about questioning the morals and decisions of those who are holding the strings. While it is very different from The Handmaid's Tale in its genre, the themes of freedom in an oppressive society are similar.
3% (2016-2020)
Stream now on Netflix
As the story for The Handmaid's Tale came from Canada, 3% is a dystopian show on Netflix from Brazil. In the not-too-distant future, most of the world's population lives in poverty. Every year, all 20-year-olds are allowed to enter "The Process" - a series of tests they must pass so that they can leave poverty in "The Inland" and begin a prosperous and happy life in the utopia of "The Offshore."
"The Cause" is the rebel group that exists in "The Inland" and wants to get rid of "The Process," forcing the greater powers to focus on helping and building up the majority, rather than only regarding the 3%. The show lasted for four seasons and all remain available on Netflix.
Watchmen (2019)
Stream now on HBO Max
Watchmen combines many of the aspects viewers of The Handmaid's Tale love into a single season. Like the graphic novel that came before, Watchmen takes place in an alternate history United States, where the US won the Vietnam War thanks to a superhuman known as Doctor Manhattan.
It also looks at a less-than-utopian future, where superpowers are punished, racism exists in groups more powerful than the Klan ever was, and police officers wear masks for their own safety. Watchmen also takes as its lead a strong female protagonist in police detective Angela Abar (Regina King). Add all of this to the quality and financing HBO had to offer, it ended up as one of the best dystopian shows on TV.