After a six-season run lasting nine years, the complete series based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel is now compiled in one comprehensive DVD box set.
Buy The Handmaid’s Tale: The Complete SeriesThe series is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society ruled by fundamentalists who consider women to be property. Elisabeth Moss stars as June, one of the few remaining fertile women, making her a hot commodity to the ruling class attempting to repopulate the world without consent. Season One follows her descent into forced sexual servitude and dehumanization, donning nun-like attire and taking her slave name, Offred, literally Of Fred, her captor. Fred (Joseph Fiennes) and his wife (Yvonne Strahovski) aren’t the worst owners, but June is still held very much against her will.
As she meets other handmaids in the same situation and navigates the chilling, highly regimented world, she gradually finds the will to fight back and change her situation. The subsequent seasons track her resolve to win her independence and change the system, picking up compatriots along the way. Moss owns the series with her simmering power, the only actor to appear in all episodes and entirely magnetic throughout the lengthy series run.
While Atwood’s tale may have seemed far-fetched at publication, the series shows it growing more prescient with every passing year. In a particularly fitting broadcast schedule, the series debuted in the first year of Trump’s first term and signed off in the first year of his current run, all too telling if it wasn’t entirely coincidental. The social commentary is painful to watch at times, not because of its fictional extremes but because it hits so close to our current reality. With a Second Civil War, declining birthrates, environmental disasters, the rise of Christian fundamentalism, subjugation of critical thought, and the trampling of basic human rights in service to the rich ruling class, the only tangible difference between the show and the present is the mandatory handmaid uniform, at least for now.
Season-specific bonus features are included, apparently all archival as they originally appeared in individual season DVD releases. The actual box is super sturdy plastic, with the 20 discs housed in combination tray/spindle contraptions that require a bit of digging to get to some discs but minimize stacking to only a few discs per spindle. The discs are well protected and at no risk of shaking loose. Video quality is decent for DVD, with sound presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. It’s a fine set, although a Blu-ray option would be preferred, along with some new bonus features about the show’s legacy in the wake of its completion.
