If you're inconsolable now that Season 2 of The Handmaid's Tale has been wrapped up in utterly thrilling fashion, that also means you're probably chomping at the bit for more dystopian drama to watch in the foetal position as you rock yourself back and forth.
The good news is, you're in luck. Below, you'll find five other series similar in theme or tone to The Handmaid's Tale; those series that not only ask the eerie question 'What if things were different?' - but are available for your streaming pleasure on Netflix now.
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BLACK MIRROR
An obvious one, perhaps – but Black Mirror is just so damned watchable that you can go back and find something new every time, especially if you trawl its earlier seasons. The recent ones, commissioned by Netflix, have all been excellent, but some of the best episodes can be found in Seasons 1 and 2; most notably the very first episode The National Anthem (which saw Rory Kinnear play the fictional British Prime Minister blackmailed into a truly horrible deed), Be Right Back, with Domhnall Gleeson playing an irritatingly compliant android, and the truly chilling White Bear. Watching the news these days, some of Charlie Brooker's storylines don't seem too far-fetched...
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3%
Imagine a future where the world is in chaos due to overpopulation, with most people living in poverty and squalor ('the Inland') with little hope of escape to a better life. That's the pitch for this Brazilian series, where you have just one chance to make it to the comparative utopia of 'Offshore' – the superior side of society, where there is order, privilege and wealth in abundance. However, only 3% of the population succeed in the 'Process', a mysterious series of tests. '3%' began as an eight-part web series before being picked up by Netflix for a second and third season; it's not only cleverly written and made, but it has some great characters, too.
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ALIAS GRACE
From one Margaret Atwood adaptation to another, this mini-series is just six episodes long, so doesn't require as much of an investment of time as The Handmaid's Tale. Although it's not quite as dismal (and certainly not set in an alternate future, or anything like it), it's just as gripping. Based on the real-life story of the Canadian murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery in 1843, but interwoven with Atwood's fictional narrative about maid Grace Marks – who was controversially convicted of the murders – it's a compelling watch.
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ORPHAN BLACK
The prospect of human clones is one that has weighed heavily on humanity's collective mind ever since Dolly The Sheep came into existence – the moral, societal and ethical implications are mind-boggling. This brilliant sci-fi thriller, which spans five seasons, brings the possibility into sharp focus by telling the tale of Sarah Manning (Tatiana Maslany), who witnesses the suicide of a woman who appears to be her doppelganger. She soon discovers that she is, in fact, one of several clones created as part of an illegal experiment and that her – and their – lives are all in danger. Like The Handmaid's Tale, it's just out-there and eerie enough to be realistic.
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THE 100
Less rooted in reality than The Handmaid's Tale but no less engrossing, The 100 (loosely based on Kass Morgan's novel of the same name) is set 97 years after a nuclear apocalypse decimated the planet. Several thousand people have been living on a space station called The Ark ever since; now, with it failing, 100 young prisoners are sent back to earth on a fact-finding mission to discover if it is possible for humanity to return to its former home. Sure enough, they discover that not everything was obliterated in the nuclear holocaust... and that several new factions of society have developed, some of them more worrying than others. There are five series of The 100 to sink your teeth into, with a sixth recently commissioned – so it's certainly an investment, but ultimately a worthwhile on
