“Hello Tomorrow!” opens in a diner the place a down-on-his-luck man’s life is given a renewed sense of hope by an enthralling salesman, Jack Billings (Billy Crudup). Jack’s a wonderful reader of individuals and succinctly and precisely describes the issues the person faces, earlier than providing him the chance of a lifetime: residing on the moon. “Fools, like me and you, we get to dream on a better tomorrow,” Jack says.
It’s a hell of a gross sales pitch. So too is the present itself. “Hello Tomorrow!” is ready in a retrofuture world – particularly, it seems to be just like the Nineteen Fifties – the place expertise is a marvel: there are hovercars pushed by black and white cartoon characters, floating prams with a claw to reinsert dummies, robots which stroll canines, a robotic mailman, businessmen with jet packs and even automated hairdresser’s chairs which double as transportation.
Oh, and rockets that go to a colony on the moon.
Jack leads a gaggle of touring salesmen for Brightside Lunar Residences, who promote timeshares 243,000 miles above. In the group is cynical playing debtor Ed Nichols (Hank Azaria, splendidly gleeful in his likelihood to be merciless and profane); workplace glue Shirley Steadman (Haneefah Wood, providing good emotional depth), who’s additionally dishonest on her husband with Ed; and personable human-with-robot-mannerisms Herb Porter (Dewshane Williams, absent of any on-screen presence).
Things change for Jack when he’s out of the blue re-introduced to his estranged son, Joey (Nicholas Podany), whom he hasn’t seen because the child was two years outdated and to whom he stays nameless for concern of ruining his life. Joey desires a brand new life on the moon however finally ends up recruited by Jack to affix the gross sales group; skilled success on Earth will swimsuit him. All Jack desires to do is change lives for the higher – whether or not that’s a random stranger dreaming of a lunar house, or his promising son.
There are some good performances right here, primarily from Crudup, Azaria and Podany. Anyone who’s watched “Brockmire” will know the way a lot enjoyable it’s to let Azaria unfastened, particularly when he’s allowed to veer into some form of anger or frustration; like a cross between Moe, Chief Wiggum and Tony Soprano. Podany’s rapport with Crudup is terrific, the younger man bright-eyed and a type of dreaming fools, however there’s a attraction to his positivity and newfound enthusiasm. Their relationship is the very core of the collection. Crudup’s charisma carries all 10 episodes – the entire thing leans on Jack’s unshakable religion within the enterprise, and Crudup is great at discovering the steadiness between desperation and the boldness which makes him such a profitable salesman.
Very little else stands out. The present’s joke ratio is low, with its most important comedic success coming from Azaria and the candy, harmless-yet-also-legally-obstructive industrial regulator Lester Costopoulous (Matthew Maher). Lester’s arrival, set to whimsical music in a automobile a lot too small for him and with a robotic briefcase which follows and finds paperwork on voice command, units the tone for his character: critical about his job whereas missing the gravitas of any of TV’s historic detectives. That’s to his profit, although, and Maher’s air of innocence makes him eminently likeable, whilst he tries to cease our protagonists from their gross sales.
Part of the issue is how unlikeable lots of the characters are. Jack’s over-reaching ambition within the face of all logic turns into tiresome after some time; so too does his hiding of sure truths. Ed’s playing downside threatens to break his relationship with Shirley, regardless of their desperation to maneuver to the moon, and whereas Azaria’s off-the-rails rants are entertaining, Ed stays a horrible particular person for a lot of the season. Herb’s a live-action dummy to his ventriloquist spouse, Betty (Susan Heyward). Betty’s ambition in life is for her husband to change into the easiest; Herb’s is to observe his spouse’s ambition. Williams is best than Heyward however neither have a lot of a persona, and by the tip their interactions are like watching a nasty skit.
Alison Pill’s Myrtle Mayburn, a girl who’s satisfied into leaving her husband for the miracle of moon-living, drives on the collection’ plot and, to Pill’s credit score, she does properly to make Mayburn sympathetic within the face of all cheap assumption. She’s left livid after blowing up her personal life for the sake of a contract she didn’t learn and units out to destroy Brightside’s enterprise.
Mayburn will get caught up within the gross sales pitch: the dream of a brighter tomorrow. It’s just like the present does too. It seems to be glamorous, dons a glowing new swimsuit, speaks with confidence and makes you assume you’re changing into a part of one thing really nice. But “Hello Tomorrow!” definitely isn’t nice. It’s a large number of a collection which sees its occasional moments of coronary heart overshadowed by how missing its character motivations are, how primary and uninteresting its plot is.
Jack talks a very good recreation, and also you may even consider in his pitch. Don’t consider in “Hello Tomorrow!” – have a brighter immediately with out it.
The first three episodes of “Hello Tomorrow!” debut on Apple TV+ on Wednesday 15 February, with weekly episodes thereafter. I’ve seen all 10 episodes of the primary season.