Because I had liked
The Testaments so much, I decided to marathon the rest of the seasons of
The Handmaid's Tale. Which I hadn't done previously because while I
found the first season, which is a straightforward adaptation oft the novel it is based on and ends when it does, to be amazing, I had osmosed that the show thereafter lost quality. However, as I said, the excellence of
The Testaments adaptation by the same production team made me change my mind, and I can now say that in recent months, I marathoned the entire six seasons. (Since I restarted with season 1, to be immersed in this particular version.)
Now, when I had asmosed about the loss of quality, the show actually hadn't been finished yet, so I will say I had it easier from the get go, knowing the would be a definite tv ending and all of this was going somewhere.The more serious complaints I had osmosed were that a) it became unending misery porn, so to speak, and b) that June/Offred turned iinto an unrealistic superheroine. (From the Everywoman type in Atwood's novel, that is.) You can see why that put me off before. Without spoilers, I didn't find either to be the case, but again, I marathoned, I didnt go through weekly installments, and I think that makes a big difference. (Though otherwise I really love the weekly format more by now, and think we lost something with whole seasons getting dumped.) If I had watched on a weekly basis, I might have decided to give up at some point in s2 as well. With June, though, the osmosis was completely wrong and wouldn't have been different, I think, if I had watched on a week to week basis, because while she does have some main character plot armor physically (i.e. there are some point where a supporting character would have bit the dust), the psychological and emotional characterisation is fantastic and fantastically nuanced. Very much UNLIKE what I had expeced based on osmosis, it's not a straightforward "Everywoman in terrible regime turns resistance heroine" arc. The show, unlike what I had feared, also wasn't afraid to drastically shake up its format from s4 onwards, i.e. retrospectively mid point, by letting June accomplish that spoilery thing and then show us the messy and very real feeling long term consequences. And not just on June herself. The multi season format allowed the series to provide the supporting cast with long term character development as well. The first season had already included some flashbacks and present day scenes outside of June's pov and knowledge, and this was very much build on in the subsequent seasons for the supporting cast.
Speaking of the cast: a big thing which kept me watching was that it offers so many compelling female characters and their relationships with each other. Up to and including the most fascinatingly messed up relationship between a female lead and her sometimes female nemesis this side of
Damages, but really all the women. Even the ones showing up for just a few episodes (like poor Eden) were given interiority and a story, instead of just feeling like plot devices. And the actors really all deliver terrific performances.
All of this doesn't mean I had no complaints while watching. There were at least two occasions where I thought, come on, this goes against Atwood's rule that all the awful things done to women in this dystopia have their real life counterparts in both history and present. And you could also see some narrative stitches that came with the big change from adapting a book in one season to extending the story to many seasons to then have to take into account a sequel that only got written when three or so seaosns of the show were already broadcast but was based on the book, not the show (naturally). I.e. June as a mostly passive observer would not have worked in a multi season story, therefore the show gave her an agenda driving her forward and goals she wanted to reach beyond survival, and the existence of the
Testaments ensured that a core goal could not be reached unless the show would have decided to abandon any continuity with the bookverse for good. (Which it didn't. Mostly the compromises it found worked for me, but like I said, sometimes you can see the stitches.)
Another thing I admired about the show and which emotionally hit home was the changing attitudes towards refugees from an authoritarian regime we on display through multiple seasons, by both the general population and the governments. All this without going grimdark cynical about human nature per se; there is, throughout the show, always enough human decency and compassion on display to give you the impression that this is a story where yes, human beings can be awful, but they don't have to be, they can also be amazing, and no one but no one was has the excuse of being their worst self consistently because they're living in a dystopia.
And this is all I can say without massive spoilers, so, let's go into said spoilers.
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