The Handmaid's Tale press pack

This US drama series, based on the award-winning, best-selling novel by Margaret Atwood, 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 birth rate, 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 in the Commander’s (Joseph Fiennes) household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world. In this terrifying society where one wrong word could end her life, Offred navigates between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas and her fellow Handmaids - where anyone could be a spy for Gilead - with one goal: to survive and find the daughter who was taken from her. The series also stars Samira Wiley, Max Minghella, Yvonne Strahovski, O-T Fagbenle, Alexis Bledel, Madeline Brewer and Ann Dowd. In the first episode, Offred, one the few fertile women known as Handmaids in the oppressive Republic of Gilead, struggles to survive as a reproductive surrogate for a powerful Commander and his resentful wife.