It’s difficult to overestimate what Hulu’s adaptation of the classic dystopian Margaret Atwood novel did for both TV and the cultural landscape this year. Show-runner Bruce Miller could never have predicted, when he started production back in 2016, how this 30-plus-year-old Canadian novel would become a warped mirror for the relationship between American women and the current administration. Costume designer Ane Crabtree couldn’t have known how iconic her take on the red robes and white bonnets of Atwood’s handmaids would become. The show boosted under-the-radar profiles (director Reed Morano is now one of the hotter commodities in Hollywood), single-handedly turned Hulu into a serious original-programming contender, and, at long last, landed Elisabeth Moss her much-deserved Emmy.

Morano’s hyper-saturated colors and Moss’s intense, interior performance turned The Handmaid’s Tale into both a chilling harbinger of our potential authoritarian future and a soothing balm for those grappling with the early days of the Trump presidency, reminding them that at least our world is not that bad . . . yet. But perhaps the trickiest element Handmaid had to pull off was opening up the world of a cherished novel in order to create enough material for multiple potential seasons of a TV series. It’s not a task Miller took lightly: “People have sections of this book tattooed on their bodies. People have spent their entire academic careers studying parts of this book. This is as sacred a text as you can be touching,” he told Vanity Fair back in January. The proof of Miller’s experiment won’t be known until Season 2, but it’s safe to say, with a mountain of Emmys at home, that he didn’t defile Atwood’s sacred text . . . yet. —J.R.

Legion

By Michelle Faye/FX

Much like the ever-expanding world of comic-book films, TV has been flooded with shows adapted from or inspired by popular superheroes and villains. But as we all know, more is not necessarily better—and 2017 has been a particularly abysmal year for new comic-book shows. Inhumans, The Gifted, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and The Punisher all came and went with little wit, heart, or artistic vision to recommend them. But standing out from the pack is FX’s Legion, a hyper-stylized take on a familiar mutant tale from Fargo show-runner Noah Hawley. In an X-Men spin-off world focusing on David Haller (Dan Stevens)—a potentially schizophrenic, potentially superpowered young man—reality is constantly bent to the breaking point. And while Haller’s father may be one of the world’s most famous mutants (Professor X, the Patrick Stewart version to be precise), Legion is unhinged, in every sense of the word, from the on-screen X-Men legacy that came before it. Anchored by Stevens, who is at once dangerously charismatic, menacing, and wholly sympathetic, Legion pushes the boundaries of coherent storytelling with gonzo performances from Aubrey Plaza and Jemaine Clement. That those two find themselves thrown together by the end of Season 1 portends a very explosive Season 2. Trust in Hawley, who—in both Fargo and Legion—loves to take audiences to the breaking point of surreality before pulling them back in with relatable character drama. —J.R.

The Mick