The Testaments will still appeal to fans who never saw The Handmaid's Tale
The hit show ended in May after six seasons, but the franchise is continuing with an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 2019 sequel novel, which was officially announced six years ago.
In an update on the Hulu series, Disney Television Group President Craig Erwich - who oversees ABC and Hulu Originals - told Deadline: "We're very happy with The Testaments.
'It's definitely a different view of that world, but I think will both will be satisfying to Handmaid's fans, but open it up to to new viewers as well.'
While the upcoming series is also set in Gilead, the novel picks up after the events of The Handmaid's Tale.
The series will follow three women - Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), Daisy (Lucy Halliday) and Agnes (Chase Infiniti), who is the daughter of Elisabeth Moss' daughter June - as they uncover the truth about Gilead, and those rebelling against it.
Moss will be back in a behind the scenes role as executive producer, it's not yet known if she'll reprise her role as June on screen.
Meanwhile, Erwich insisted Disney are "very proud" of Handmaid's Tale, despite the show only getting one Primetime Emmy Awards nomination this year.
Cherry Jones - who won an Emmy for her recurring role of Holly Maddox in 2019 - is on the 2025 shortlist for Best Guest Actress in a Drama Series, but the programme didn't get the nod in any other categories.
Erwich said: 'The Handmaid's Tale is judged by the audience's reaction to the final season, which was overwhelmingly excited, gratified, satisfied.
'It's a show we're very proud of. It was the first streaming show ever to win Best Drama, it will be attached to that achievement forever and really defined Hulu, defined a generation of viewers.
"So everything beyond that, quite frankly, is gravy. This was a really good year for Handmaid's. We're very happy of the way it sailed off, bittersweet as it is.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Perth Now
7 hours ago
- Perth Now
Lindsay Lohan eyes more 'dramatic' roles
Lindsay Lohan hopes to play more "dramatic" roles after Freakier Friday. The 39-year-old actress returns in the body-swap comedy sequel as Anna Coleman and has declared that she has her eye on some "serious" parts in the future. Lindsay told The Hollywood Reporter at the Los Angeles premiere of Freakier Friday on Tuesday (22.07.25): "(I'm) doing a TV show with Hulu that I'm really excited about and I'd like to take on some more serious, dramatic roles. "And I love doing romantic comedy because that's where my home is and I feel like where my fans want to see me, but I'd like to take on some things that are different; maybe find something that's an action-packed film. Just really show people a different side of me." Lindsay returns alongside co-star Jamie Lee Curtis for the sequel and has promised that it is "bigger" than the original 2003 film Freaky Friday. She explained: "We have more stories to tell. It's a four-way swap and there's more music and there's a lot more physical comedy than the first one, which I love. Any moment that I can pull a Lucille Ball, I'm down for it." Lindsay was just 15 when production started on the original movie and explained that she has always remained close with Jamie as the Halloween star was a "mother figure" to her. The Mean Girls star said: "She was there for me at a time of my life when my mom was busy with my siblings, and she was kind of like another mother figure to me out here in LA. That's kept us pretty tight-knit over time, and we've always just been in contact." Curtis explained that she wanted Lohan to feel "love" during the making of the movie. The 66-year-old star recalled: "I said to her from day one, 'I want nothing from you except your own peace and serenity.' And I am safe, I'm a home base; I don't want anything, I'm not going to ask you to come to anything. "I don't want her to feel transactional with me, I want her to feel love." Lindsay recently expressed her desire to be "fully involved" in the making of her films after she served as an executive producer on her recent Netflix projects. The Parent Trap star said: "It really came from the movies I was doing with Netflix. "I was like, 'I know this.' When I'm reading the script, I'm already visualising where it's going to be, what the character's wearing. "(That journey) was a big part of what the new script was going to be. I like to be fully involved in the projects I do now, from the ground up. I really enjoy sharing my knowledge I've acquired over all these years in the industry, and don't want to let that go to waste. That's a big part of who I am as an actor now."
The Age
8 hours ago
- The Age
ABC comedy Austin returns with more humour, heart and Michael Theo
Austin (season two) ★★★★ There is much to rejoice about Austin, ABC's Australian and British comedy drama co-production, returning for a second series. An original show! Made (partly) here! More of actor Michael Theo in the title role! Big-hearted, intelligently humorous and laced with goof, the first series followed Austin (Theo, Love On the Spectrum), an autistic man, connecting with his biological father, Julian (Ben Miller, Professor T, Paddington), a bestselling – though recently cancelled – author. Their new relationship brought profound change for father and son (and greater family and associates) amid revealed secrets and semi-chaos. Series one ended with DNA results and a cliffhanger – is Austin actually Julian's son? The answer comes swiftly in series two's opening episode. I won't give it away, suffice to say that Austin, Julian and a raft of returning and new characters (this show bursts with singularly distinctive roles) are front and centre across eight new episodes, all set, as in series one, between Canberra and London. Austin, now living in North London with Julian, his stepmother Ingrid (Sally Phillips, Bridget Jones, Miranda) and his stepsister Florence (Ellie McKay, Miss Austen), has written a book about England's capital, and Julian, pivoting careers, is helping to publish it. Austin is given a literary agent, Greta (Claire Lovering, Gold Diggers) a posh zeitgeister with ironic knee-high socks and untrammelled confidence, whose influence on her client brings fame and a character change. Julian – cognisant of the philandering and narcissism that has driven Ingrid to reconsider her marriage – is doing his uneven best to stop acting like a total prig.
The Age
8 hours ago
- The Age
Neurodivergent TV characters used to be rare. Now they take the lead
Patience Evans (Ella Maisy Purvis) is a young English woman who works in relatively untroubled isolation in the criminal records department of police headquarters in York. A wiz with data, she loves puzzles and finds it easier to relate to animals than to people. Shrinking from physical contact, she habitually moves around town in headphones as she finds all sorts of sounds – traffic noise, conversations – unsettling. At home and at work, she cocoons herself in distinctive environments fashioned to suit her needs. Austin Hogan (Michael Theo) is a young Australian man who's worked as a forklift driver and loves trains – although he prefers to call them railways. He studies national flags, favours deerstalker hats and folds origami cranes when he's stressed. He discovered a London-based branch of his family when author Julian Hartswood (Ben Miller) was identified as his biological father. Patience and Austin are the title characters in a couple of very different series. But the British crime thriller Patience (ABC) and the Australian-English sitcom Austin (ABC) share a common feature, and it's increasingly evident on TV: the eponymous characters and the actors playing them are autistic. That's a notable shift: in decades past, neurodivergent characters were more likely to be marginal diversions, maybe seen as odd or labelled as crazy or eccentric, perhaps used as light relief. Another quality Patience and Austin share – also increasingly evident – is that, in both productions, the protagonists' neurodivergence is depicted more as an attribute than an affliction. In Patience, which is adapted from the French series Astrid et Raphaelle (not available here), her ability to process volumes of information and to identify patterns that others miss bring her to the attention of Detective Inspector Beatrice Metcalf (Laura Fraser). Austin, having discovered his connection with Julian in the 2024 debut season of the comedy, has been welcomed into the Hartswood family. His earnest, unflinchingly honest nature proves a disarming foil for Julian who might – or might not – be his dad, a connection that the first episode of the new season throws into doubt. Julian can be sly and opportunistic, inclined to skate around the morality of a situation when some benefit to him is involved – the kind of behaviour that Austin wouldn't contemplate. Patience and Austin approach things differently from the neurotypical types around them, and both shows identify the ways in which this can be an asset. However, Patience, being a drama, spends more time dealing with the challenging side of the condition – such as self-doubt, anxiety and isolation – while the comedy portrays Austin as more of a blithe spirit sometimes challenged by circumstances. Over recent years, increasing numbers of neurodivergent characters have appeared on-screen, particularly in crime series. Sometimes their conditions are specifically identified, sometimes their behaviour only suggests that they're on the spectrum. That's the case with Saga Noren (Sofia Helin) in the Swedish-Danish thriller The Bridge (Stan). She's a gifted detective who doesn't work well with others: she's brusque without intending to be impolite; she misreads social signals; she doesn't understand humour. She also absorbs information, whether she's playing poker or surveying a crime scene, differently from those around her. Along comparable lines, in the mystery comedy-drama Monk (Foxtel), Tony Shalhoub plays a private detective with obsessive-compulsive disorder who's also plagued by myriad phobias. Once, he was a San Francisco policeman, but his mental-health spiralled after the murder of his wife, and he works for the department as a consultant. Loading In style and tone, Monk was something of a precursor to High Potential (Disney+), which has been adapted from the French-Belgian series, HPI (Acorn, AMC). In it, Kaitlin Olson stars as a single mum and night-time cleaner of homicide-division offices who scans the whiteboard, sifts through rubbish bins and solves cases that confound the daytime detectives. With her dangly earrings, micro-skirts and lollipops, Morgan doesn't immediately generate confidence from other cops: some of them are predictably sceptical until her talent shines. But the beleaguered head of the squad recognises Morgan's, well, high potential, and engages her as a consultant. Beyond the lead characters in a range of productions, neurodivergent characters are also more frequently appearing as members of ensembles, such as Quinni (Chloe Hayden) in Heartbreak High (Netflix) and Rose (Leah Byrne) in Dept. Q (Netflix). Neurodivergent protagonists often have a champion, a steadfast supporter, friend, parent or mentor who recognises their gifts and learns to understand their differences. In part, that's the role of Detective Bea in Patience, as it is of protective father figure Dr Aaron Glassman (Richard Schiff) in The Good Doctor (Amazon Prime, Stan, Netflix, 7Plus). Adapted from the Korean series Good Doctor (Netflix), it stars Freddie Highmore as Shaun Murphy, a surgical resident at a California hospital who is autistic and has savant syndrome. As Austin and this hospital drama indicate, the presence of neurodivergent protagonists isn't confined to crime shows. For example, there's the Korean comedy-drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo (Netflix), in which rookie lawyer Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), who has Asperger's syndrome, brings her skills to legal battles. Woo is wide-eyed and sweet-natured, with a special interest in whales and dolphins, her understanding of human behaviour often stemming from her observations of marine animals. It's a trait she shares with Sam Gardener (Keir Gilchrist), who's fascinated by penguins in Atypical. Robia Rashid's beautifully calibrated comedy-drama (Netflix) has autistic teenager Sam negotiating the complications of family life as he's navigating the minefield of adolescence and high school. Robia's series is funny, touching and illuminating as it examines the challenges for Sam and his family. It's as though TV fictions have evolved to a stage where a recognition of neurodiversity, and inclusion of it, is now desirable in the creation of communities. That said, Highmore offered a useful insight when I interviewed him soon after the globally successful premiere season of The Good Doctor. Commenting on the thinking behind the series, he said the show's producers were determined that Shaun should not be seen as representative of everyone who is autistic. As he put it, 'It's the same as if you had a neurotypical lead character in a television show: they would never possibly represent everyone who's neurotypical, and no one would expect them to.'
