Stan finally gets its hands on The Handmaid’s Tale

Those who follow management hissy fits will know that Nine’s Hugh Marks was not happy about SBS nabbing the rights to The Handmaid’s Tale, but Stan finally gets their hands on Season 1 from tomorrow, screening in 4K.

The title has been at the centre of a feud over SBS on Demand acquisitions and the SBS Charter. It has been raised at Senate committee hearings.

“With great shows like The Handmaid’s Tale, we’d put in a very commercial offer. SBS could have taken a second window after Nine; they still could have had it available, but they chose to outbid us and take the first window,” Marks told Senate Estimates.

That fight has partly led to a review of ABC and SBS about competitive neutrality.

The series 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 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 that was taken from her.

The Handmaid’s Tale, features an all-star cast, including Moss (Mad Men, Top of the Lake), Joseph Fiennes (American Horror Story: Asylum, Shakespeare in Love), Samira Wiley (Orange is the New Black), Max Minghella (The Mindy Project), Australia’s Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck, Dexter), O-T Fagbenle (The Five), Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) and Ann Dowd (Compliance, The Leftovers).

Wednesday, December 12 on Stan.