A generation after the book was published and became a movie, "The Handmaid's Tale" has been turned into a jolting TV series, representing a huge step up in class for Hulu. Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel has already been politicized, but stands on its own as a best-yet project that enables the streaming service rub elbows with the pay-TV elite. "Mad Men's" Elisabeth Moss stars as Offred, the central figure and narrator of a nightmare alternative-reality, where a totalitarian order has seized control, forcing the few fertile women that remain able to bear children for the "leaders of the faithful," while their barren wives look on. Clad in robes and hoods, the women must speak in hushed tones of reverence, saying things like "Under his eye" to indicate their fidelity to the rules.

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