by Mike Hilty, Contributing Writer
I’ve worked in sales-related roles for a good chunk of my career. Whether I’m selling something directly to consumers or businesses, or training sales reps, I’ve always been interested in the sales cycle and working directly with customers. When I do sales training, we usually talk about ethical business practices and how it’s essential to listen to your customers to recommend the product they need, rather than what’s asked for. I’m usually one to point out in a group of friends if something appears too easy from a sales perspective in movies or television shows.
My head was spinning with some of the things I saw from Hello Tomorrow!
Admittedly, I was rather excited to see Hello Tomorrow! for a few reasons. The aesthetics of the setting, where technology dominates how we function, but houses and clothes look like they come from the 1950s, intrigued me. Sci-fi dramedies have my number, and I was excited about the cast they assembled. Instead, Hello Tomorrow! may go down as one of Apple’s biggest missed opportunities.
In the future, Jack Billings (Billy Crudup) leads a group of traveling sales representatives who are selling timeshares on the moon. When Jack discovers a prospective customer named Joey (Nicholas Podany), who could be the next great sales representative for his company, he pulls out all the stops to show him how to sell these timeshares. With the help of Jack’s team, including his second-in-command, Shirley (Haneefah Wood), and sales representatives, Herb (Deshane Williams) and Eddie (Hank Azaria), the team succeeds in training Joey and meeting the demands of their customers.
The aspect of Hello Tomorrow! I love the most is its retro-futuristic look. Both the costume design and set design are outstanding. Several robots and contraptions throughout the town are entertaining and practical. Where I struggle with all of these aspects, though, is the timing of the show. It doesn’t take place during the actual space race in the United States, so I’m confused as to when it does take place. We don’t have any world building where the audience could understand how and why this timeframe is the way that it is. If the creators spent a little more time explaining this era, it would have been helpful.
Regardless of the timing, Hello Tomorrow! manages to make the most of all their performers. Crudup is electric as Jack. He balances used car salesmen with preaching astoundingly well. Jack knows he’s not selling timeshares, but the prospect of people being able to escape their lives on Earth. It’s a compelling message, and Jack is the perfect spokesperson for this company. All the people in the company bring their best performances forward. Shirley is the strongest character in the series. She is the voice of reason for a group of dreamers, but even she gets seduced by the prospect of financial success.
Williams and Azaria are criminally underused. I’m used to this with Azaria, who is often a side character in the movies and television he is in. Williams is amazing as Herb, who has a clear objective for why he’s selling these timeshares. I like exploring his motivation, but we don’t get a lot of other substances from him. In fact, that’s a problem with all the characters: They’re all thinly written and don’t have a lot of substance. It’s hard to root for or like any of them when we don’t know a lot about them.
Half-baked ideas are perhaps the biggest downfall of the Hello Tomorrow! In addition to the characters being underwritten, the plot doesn’t give us any focus. First off, advertising Hello Tomorrow! as a dramedy is not a good idea, because I didn’t laugh frequently while watching it. The jokes are few and far between and don’t really land with the story. Second, Hello Tomorrow! could have had some amazing things to say about predatory business practices. Jack and the company use tactics that are questionable at best to close sales. The very nature of business could have been addressed with how people are duped to buy something with the allure of a better future. That’s a powerful tool to close sales, especially in the hands of people who know how to wield it. Instead, we get a melodramatic story about a family that doesn’t resonate.
The one theme that had potential is the consequences of running away from your problems. We have two concurrent storylines involving this theme. To start, Jack doesn’t take responsibility for anything he does, personally or professionally. He believes in the power of dreams to sell people, even if those dreams turn people toxic. A good example of this involves the storyline with Myrtle (Alison Pill), a customer who destroys everything in her life for the prospect of going to the moon. Every customer Jack and his associates sells to purchase their timeshare because their life on Earth sucks. They want the prospect of starting fresh on the moon, even though some of their problems could conceivably follow them. The problem we run into with this theme is that it doesn’t get fleshed out enough, with secondary characters and family dynamics taking its place. Had it been the premise and focus of the series, it could have been great.
Hello Tomorrow! will be one of those missed opportunities that Apple will want back. There were a lot of problems, like advertising the series as a comedy when it’s not funny, having underdeveloped characters even though they had talented performers, and focusing on aspects of the story that aren’t as interesting as the details involving Jack’s business. In the end, with streaming services giving shorter leashes for shows, high-level sci-fi that has a good idea but poor execution might not have very many chances to right the rocket.
Score: 6/10
Hello Tomorrow! is currently streaming on Apple TV+
You can read more from Mike Hilty, and follow him on Twitter, Letterboxd, and Serializd