TV-MA | 10 episodes | Sci-Fi, Drama | February 17, 2023
In this retrofuture, the cars still do not technically fly, but they definitely hover. It is very much like the rosy vision of the future promised to us in 1950s science fiction. However, the human condition remains just as messy as it ever was.
In this alternate future, people are starting to hope life will be better on the moon. Jack Billings (Billy Crudup) sells that hope with the moon condo units people dream of blasting-off to in co-creators Amit Bhalla and Lucas Jansen’s 10-episode “Hello Tomorrow!”
Jack Billings and his team barnstorm the country selling units in the Brightside Lunar real estate development. The sales materials make them look luxurious, but nobody really knows for sure yet, because the company keeps postponing their first launch.
That is only a minor hiccup for a selling machine like Billings, but he is a little spooked to be back in Vistaville, where the wife and son he walked out on years ago still live.
Rather fatefully, Billings discovers the wife he abandoned is now resting in a coma, after a robotic delivery truck backed into her. Of course, he lacks the courage to visit her hospital room, but he inadvertently meets his son instead. Joey Shorter (Nicolas Podany) has no idea who Billings is, but he appreciates the older man’s friendliness. He tries to buy a Brightside unit, hoping for a fresh start, but Billings recruits him as his new employee and protégé instead.
Shirley Stedman (Haneefah Wood), Billings’s jaded office manager, has no idea why he hired the naïve Shorter. Senior sales associate (and Stedman’s not-so-secret lover) Eddie Sharples (Hank Azaria) is openly dismissive of the kid, while the junior sales associate, Herb Porter (Dewshane Williams) can hardly conceal his jealousy of the time and attention Billings devotes to his new hire.
The trouble is the moon is a long way from earth, so Billings and his team do not really know what the company has done up there, if anything, which is awkward when local regulators start sniffing around.
Crudup Shines
Crudup is terrific as the fast-talker. You can see bits and pieces of those aforementioned characters, but he also conveys how Billings is tragically too slick for his own good. Yet, the way he expresses his character’s eternal optimism is quintessentially American. Since “Hello Tomorrow!” technically qualifies as science fiction—it certainly has plenty of robots and rocket ships—it is unlikely to get much awards consideration, but this really is some of Crudup’s best work.
Haneefah Wood is also memorable as Stedman. The show is billed as a “dramedy,” which is reasonable in large measure thanks to her razor-sharp comedic timing (supplying the “emedy” part).
Surprisingly, some of the most poignant drama comes from Frankie Faison as Buck Manzell, Brightside’s celebrity spokesman, who was known as the “Space Sheriff” on TV, but now has trouble distinguishing his old show from reality.
Space Age Chic
It is debatable whether Bhalla and Jansen’s story of an ethically questionable travelling salesman trying to redeem his moral failings really needed to be set in a nostalgic, alternate future, but the 1950s Space Age chic truly suits Billings’s irrepressible optimism.Like in the 1980s, we were an optimistic nation in the 1950s, but we lost that confidence in the 1990s and never got it back. “Hello Tomorrow!” reminds viewers of the feeling that a better tomorrow was just a launch away.
Regardless, fans of retrofuturism will enjoy the design of the squatty robots and the wide, sleek, tail-finned hover-cars. It all looks like a very cool alternate future, even though human nature obviously has not changed.
Crudup also really helps sell the bittersweet vision of the future, just like his character sells the moon units. Recommended for fans of Chesley Bonestell’s vintage moon-based astronomical paintings, and the lounge-vibe of “Madmen,” “Hello Tomorrow!” starts streaming on Feb. 17 on Apple TV+.
