See ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 1 Photos

Way back in May 2015, Yahoo TV writer Ethan Alter suggested that it was time for some enterprising network or streaming platform to turn Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale into a prestige miniseries.

Fast-forward about one year, and Hulu — home to 11.22.63, another prestige miniseries based on a bestseller — announced that it was bringing the book to the screen with Mad Men‘s Elisabeth Moss in the starring role.

Based on the award-winning, bestselling novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly part of the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a Handmaid, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as an attempt to repopulate a devastated world.

Click through to see new pics from the Hulu series, which also stars Joseph Fiennes as Cmdr. Fred Waterford.

The Handmaid’s Tale premieres in April 2017 on Hulu.