It’s the end of the world as we know it. At least, it is on television. “The Handmaid’s Tale” returned to Hulu this week for a third season. On it, the heroine, June, will continue to combat the horrors of a futuristic, theocratic America in which women have been stripped of reproductive freedom.

On the same day, the high-tech dystopia “Black Mirror” returned to Netflix. Both are huge Emmy-winning hits for those platforms, and in 2017 “The Handmaid’s Tale” proved to be Hulu’s most-watched series premiere ever, according to the entertainment website IGN.

Perhaps out of some desire to compete, HBO is primed to release “Years And Years,” a futuristic drama in which Emma Thompson plays a far-right politician who, over the course of 15 years (beginning in 2019), “tears Britain apart,” according to IndieWire.

That’s immediately after the end of their surprise hit with the miniseries “Chernobyl,” currently the highest-rated TV series of all time on IMDb.

None of these shows are drawing in viewers because they’re fun. Dealing with the aftermath of the nuclear explosion in 1986, a particularly bleak episode of “Chernobyl” featured the cleanup crew shooting radioactive puppies in the zone around the power plant.

Another episode showed a man’s skin melting off his body while his pregnant wife watched.

“The Handmaid’s Tale” was so horrific that the episodes in Season 2 were described as “torture porn” by The Guardian.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of “Black Mirror” episodes deal with someone either being psychologically or physically tortured by technology.

Yahoo News reported that the show was at its best when it was “keeping viewers up at night with political hellscapes and other horror-movie scenarios.”

Which is somewhat surprising, because a lot of Americans are already up all night worrying. In 2018, according to a poll by the American Psychiatric Association, about 40 million Americans had an anxiety disorder.

So why, if we’re already very worried and unhappy, do we turn with such enthusiasm to shows sure to compound our worry?

Perhaps because people don’t want to escape from their worries but have them validated.

There is nothing more irritating to anxious people than being told they’re worried about nothing. Dystopias offer us an easy way to demonstrate what the ultimate result of many of our worries could be.

It’s hardly possible to go to a reproductive rights rally without seeing people in “The Handmaid’s Tale” costumes — which are used to demonstrate where the restrictions could lead.

Likewise, those worried about the bad effects of screen time can reference any one of a dozen “Black Mirror” episodes to illustrate the worst-case scenario.

And if you’re worried that the government isn’t entirely honest, boy, is “Chernobyl” ever a show for you.

But these shows also provide us with a sense of hope. NYC-based psychotherapist Katherine Schafler explains that, “we’re all acknowledging the mass suffering and injustice in the world, and how desperately we want someone to be the hero and change the story. Perhaps how desperately we’d like to change things ourselves, the fantasy of becoming the ‘everyday hero.’”

On “The Handmaid’s Tale,” women organize a rebellion. In “Chernobyl,” good men and science prevail (RIP Valery Legasov).

In “Black Mirror,” generally at least one or two people per season are able to escape the thrall of technology or use it to their advantage.

They provide us road maps for how we can behave in a world that seems ruthless and terrifying.

And if they can survive, then maybe, just maybe, so can we.

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