Super Bowl ad slots are normally reserved for blockbuster movie trailers, random celebrity endorsements, and horse-related beer commercials, but this year we’ll be getting a dose of dystopian TV to wash down our wings between downs. The Handmaid’s Tale is coming to Hulu this Spring, and the streaming platform is looking to make a splash with a new trailer that hits some bleak notes that will no doubt cut through the noise during big game commercial breaks.
Starring Elizabeth Moss (Mad Men), The Handmaid’s Tale is an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s award-winning sci-fi book of the same name. The story is set in Gilead, a dystopian totalitarian society once known as the United States. Gilead is experiencing a raft of problems, from environmental disasters to mass infertility. The few fertile women still alive are kept as Handmaids in the house of Gilead’s Commander, locked in sexual servitude against their will.
Atwood’s novel is, as you can tell from the description of the story, incredibly bleak, but this adaptation is remarkably timely. The Handmaid’s Tale sparked a great deal of debate when it was first released, and it’s quite likely this adaptation will do the same when it starts streaming later this year.
The Handmaid’s Tale also stars Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls), Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), and Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck), and you can catch it on Hulu starting April 26th.
