EXCLUSIVE: The Testaments is off to blessed beginnings as it lures viewers back into Gilead through the lens of a group of teenage girls.
The series drove over 11M hours streamed globally after eight days across Hulu and Disney+, Deadline can reveal exclusively based on internal data from Disney.
The Testaments premiered with three episodes on April 8. The fourth episode, which came available on April 15, saw a 20% viewership increase compared to the premiere after its first day of streaming, according to Disney. It also premiered on Hulu’s daily Top 15 rankings and continues to claim a place as one of the streamer’s top titles.
Disney doesn’t typically report hours streamed anymore, instead opting for “views” defined as time spent streaming divided by runtime. Since the data includes one day of streaming for the fourth episode, there’s no clear cut way to determine the average views, though rough estimates would suggest a few million views per episode.
That also means direct comparisons to the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale are difficult. The Season 6 finale of the flagship series drew 4.4M views in the U.S. alone in its first seven days, Disney said at the time. That was up 22% from the Season 6 premiere.
The Testaments is based on Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name and is a sequel series to The Handmaid’s Tale. It officially introduces young teens Agnes (Chase Infiniti), dutiful and pious, and Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a new arrival and convert from beyond Gilead’s borders. Both are connected to Gilead with many secrets yet to be revealed.
As they navigate the gilded halls of Aunt Lydia’s (Ann Dowd) elite preparatory school for future wives, a place where obedience is instilled brutally and always with divine justification, their bond becomes the catalyst that will upend their past, their present, and their future.
The cast also includes Mabel Li as Aunt Vidalia, Amy Seimetz as Paula, Brad Alexander as Garth, Rowan Blanchard as Shunammite, Mattea Conforti as Becka Grove, Zarrin Darnell-Martin as Aunt Gabbana, Eva Foote as Aunt Estee, Isolde Ardies as Huldah, Shechinah Mpumlwana as Jehosheba, Birva Pandya as Miriam, and Kira Guloien as Rosa.
The series is created by showrunner and executive producer Bruce Miller and executive produced by Warren Littlefield, Elisabeth Moss, Steve Stark, Shana Stein, Maya Goldsmith, John Weber, Sheila Hockin, Daniel Wilson, Fran Sears and Mike Barker, who will also direct the first three episodes and finale. MGM Television and 20th Television produce the series.
