For those of you who are fans of both fictive representations of a dystopian nightmare whereby human fertility has reached a nadir and long flowing red robes, then we literally could not have a more apt piece of news this morning. For there has been a release date announced for the third season of The Handmaid’s Tale.
The show, based on the eponymous novel by Margaret Atwood, has been a runaway success since its first season debuted in 2017. With the first season covering the events of the book there was some trepidation when it was renewed for a second season whether the original material created for the television show would match the quality of that derived from the book. However the second season, which premiered last year, was equally well received.
Since then, bits are being champed at, lips are being licked, appetites are being whetted in anticipation of the third season’s release. Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the third season of the show is set to debut on Hulu on June 5. Three episodes will be released that day with another following every Wednesday following.
Though this marks the American release date for the show there has yet to be an announcement as to when it will return to Irish screens on RTÉ 2, though I’m sure wily, internet savvy fans with suitably loose morals and attitudes toward copyright legalities will find some illicit way of circumventing this delay and seeing it soon after its American debut.
With the previous two seasons of the show debuting in April, Craig Erwich, the Senior Vice-President of Original Programming for Hulu (as confusing a lineage of seniority in a title as ever there was) has denied that the show’s later air-date is to get out of the way of Game Of Thrones Season Eight, which is set to be released in April. He attributed the slight delay in the show’s release to a desire to uphold the show’s quality.
“No, it doesn’t [have anything to do with avoiding Game of Thrones].
“Maintaining the quality of The Handmaid’s Tale, which is impeccable, takes time.
“We wanted to give the show enough time to maintain the incredibly high standards of storytelling set in seasons one and two. The season three episodes — all of them — [will be] eligible for the Emmy body when the show is qualified.”
