Predictions made during the middle of the 20th Century were that by now we would all be traveling via flying cars or jetpacks. Technology took a different direction but it is possible to get a glimpse of what that other world would have looked like through the new AppleTV+ series “Hello Tomorrow!”
The 10-episode, half-hour dramedy, is set in a retro-future world. It is a blend of advancements in technology blended with the world being imagined in the ‘50s. It launches on the streaming service on Feb. 17 with the first three episodes. That will be followed by one new episode weekly, every Friday, through April 7.
Co-creator Amit Bhalla describes “Hello Tomorrow!” as a series built on an imaginary landscape set in a different time and place. At the same time, there are some very familiar elements.
“It’s also something that’s familiar to all of us in a weird way. We want to draw on our collective imagination,” Bhalla says. “We wanted the world to feel lived in, which is, I think, unlike some of the retro futures that we’ve seen in the past.
“We wanted the robots to have some rust and be a little tranky. We wanted them to feel like it was a place that we’d all actually inhabited at some point.”
This strange – yet familiar – new world revolves around Jack (Billy Crudup) who is a talented and ambitious salesperson. He’s so good at his job, he could sell land on the moon. That’s a good thing as he and his fellow salespeople are hawking lunar timeshares.
Jack has an unshakeable faith in a brighter tomorrow that inspires his coworkers and revitalizes his desperate customers. At the same time, his sales pitches threaten to leave him dangerously lost in the very dream that sustains him.
“His idea is to bring hope to not just the people that he’s selling to but to his team. And he wants to have people imagine a world that’s better. If you pay a nominal fee for a kitchen device, just the idea of it might be enough to make your day a little bit brighter,” Crudup says. “The way that Jack thinks about each and every transaction that he makes is in a hopeful way.
“It’s a way not to sell anybody on ideas that are not material. But it’s the idea itself that he’s selling. And the idea is one of investment in the world and a love for community. A love for being a part of this world.”
Co-creator Lucas Jansen points out that Jack is a character who has the audacity to think that he’s entitled to live the American dream and so are the people who work with him. The character is designed to believe that consumer capitalism will be what makes the dream a reality.
This sets up “Hello Tomorrow!” to deliver drama that – as Jansen puts it – is “occasionally absurd, occasionally ridiculous and occasionally miraculous.” It is all just packaged in the hopeful visions of the future from the ’50s. This is all delivered through Crudup’s character who might be a bit of a scam artist but he never goes far enough to give up his own humanity.
The co-creators took a lot of inspiration from an actual sales training video from the ‘50s. They pushed the idea of how hope and hard work would end up making both salesman and customer happy.
Jansen says, “We’re watching it, and we’re just so taken by this quality of optimism and innocent hope, and like this is an optimism that is so indomitable and so remarkable it can just transfigure reality.
“The greatest salesman – Jack – is the one who buys his own line completely from the jump. And, to us, that is quite possibly the tragic American figure of our age.”
Crudup comes to the series after a successful run on “The Morning Show.” His other credits include “Almost Famous,” “Watchman,” “Alien: Covenant” and “After the Wedding.”
Joining Crudup in the cast of “Hello Tomorrow!” are Haneefah Wood (“Truth Be Told”), Alison Pill (“The Newsroom”), Nicholas Podany (“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”), Dewshane Williams (“The Umbrella Academy”), Hank Azaria (“Brockmire”), Matthew Maher (“Our Flag Means Death”), and Jacki Weaver (“Silver Linings Playbook”).
Pill, who just wrapped a run on “Star Trek: Picard,” was impressed by the nostalgic look created for the show. That ranged from oddball robots to wardrobe of the era.
“It was fascinating to see what the designers would do to change elements of it enough to say, this is the 50s in a way you haven’t seen it,” Pill says. “And to see those changes, it definitely puts you into the world.”
It’s a world imagined more than a half century ago and given a present day spin.
