''Hello Tomorrow!'' is an American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

television series that premiered on

Apple TV+ Apple TV is a digital media player and microconsole developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is a small network appliance hardware that plays received media data such as video and audio to a television set or external display. Since its secon ...

on February 17, 2023. It stars

Billy Crudup William Gaither Crudup (; born July 8, 1968) is an American actor. He is a four-time Tony Award nominee, winning once for his performance in Tom Stoppard's play ''The Coast of Utopia'' in 2007. He has starred in numerous high-profile films, inc ...

Plot

In a

retrofuturistic Retrofuturism (adjective ''retrofuturistic'' or ''retrofuture'') is a movement in the creative arts showing the influence of depictions of the future produced in an earlier era. If futurism is sometimes called a "science" bent on anticipatin ...

world, a

huckster A huckster is anyone who sells something or serves biased interests, using pushy or showy tactics. Historically, the term meant any type of peddler or vendor, but over time it has assumed pejorative connotations. Etymology The original meanin ...

named Jack Billings runs a small business of

traveling salesmen "Traveling Salesmen" is the thirteenth episode of the third season of the American version of ''The Office'', and the show's 41st overall. The episode was written by Michael Schur, Lee Eisenberg, and Gene Stupnitsky, and was directed by series ...

who go door to door (on Earth) selling

timeshare A timeshare (sometimes called vacation ownership) is a property with a divided form of ownership or use rights. These properties are typically resort condominium units, in which multiple parties hold rights to use the property, and each owner ...

s on the

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

. Jack pays his staff with the payments, pockets the rest, and then moves on from town to town, with the fictional rocket launch for his customers to be brought to their fictional new homes being delayed further and further. In one of the towns Jack realizes he's found his son Joey, who doesn't know that Jack is his father. Jack hires Joey as a salesperson, decides to stay in this town for a while, and tries to find a way to tell Joey that they are father and son without driving him away, while also trying to keep the fraudulent business from crashing down around him.

Cast

Main

as Jack Billings *

Hank Azaria Henry Albert Azaria ( ; born April 25, 1964) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is known for voicing many characters in the animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), most notably Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Sna ...

as Eddie * Haneefah Wood as Shirley Stedman *

Alison Pill Alison Pill (born November 27, 1985) is a Canadian actress. A former child actress, Pill began her career at age 12, appearing in numerous films and television series. She transitioned to adult roles and her breakthrough came with the television ...

as Myrtle Mayburn * Nicholas Podany as Joey Shorter * Dewshane Williams as Herb Porter

Recurring

Jacki Weaver Jacqueline Ruth Weaver (born 25 May 1947) is an Australian theatre, film and television actress. Weaver emerged in the 1970s as a symbol of the Australian New Wave through her work in Ozploitation films such as '' Stork'' (1971), ''Alvin Purp ...

as Barbara Billings *

Dagmara Domińczyk Dagmara Domińczyk ( ; born July 17, 1976) is a Polish Americans, Polish-American actress and author. She has appeared in the films ''Rock Star (2001 film), Rock Star'' (2001), ''The Count of Monte Cristo (2002 film), The Count of Monte Cristo'' ...

as Elle *

Michael Paul Chan Michael Paul Chan (born June 26, 1950) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Lieutenant Michael Tao on the TNT series ''The Closer'' and '' Major Crimes''. He also acted in ''U.S. Marshals'', playing an assassin. Biography Chan ...

as Walt * Matthew Maher as Lester Costopolous

Guest

Michael Harney Michael John Harney is an American actor of film, television, and theater. He is best known for starring on the Netflix original series ''Orange Is the New Black'' as Corrections Officer Sam Healy. In 2019, he had a recurring role in the Apple T ...

as Sal *

Frankie Faison Frankie Russel Faison (born June 10, 1949) is an American actor known for his role as Deputy Commissioner, and, later, Commissioner, Ervin Burrell in the HBO series ''The Wire'', as Barney Matthews in the ''Hannibal Lecter'' franchise, and as Suga ...

as Buck Manzell *

W. Earl Brown William Earl Brown (born September 7, 1963) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, musician, and songwriter. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Kenneth "Kenny" Brown in the film ''Scream (1996 film), Scream'' (1996), Warren in the ...

as Big Fred *

Gabriel Ebert Gabriel Ebert is an American stage actor and singer. Early life Ebert was born and raised in Colorado. He attended high school at the Denver School of the Arts and graduated from Juilliard. Career Ebert made his Broadway debut as the understudy ...

as Marvin Mayburn *

Susan Heyward Susan Heyward is an American actress. She starred in the PlayStation Network original series '' Powers'' (2015–16) and HBO period drama ''Vinyl'' (2016). From 2018 to 2019, Heyward had a recurring role as Tamika Ward in the Netflix comedy-drama ...

as Betty Porter

Episodes

Production

On May 6, 2021, it was announced that

would produce Amit Bhalla's and Lucas Jansen's TV series ''Hello Tomorrow!,'' with Bhalla and Jansen co-writing and producing with

Blake Griffin Blake Austin Griffin (born March 16, 1989) is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Oklahoma Sooners, when he was named the consensu ...

Ryan Kalil Ryan Joseph Kalil (born March 29, 1985) is an American film and television producer and former NFL center. He played college football at USC, where he was a member of two national championship teams, was named a first-team All-American, and won ...

, and Noah Weinstein's Mortal Media,

, and Jonathan Entwistle, with Entwistle set to direct the 10-episode series. Crudup would appear in the lead role. On October 25, 2021,

, Haneefah Wood,

, Nicholas Podany, and Dewshane Williams joined the cast, as did

on November 17. On January 24, 2022,

received a recurring role. Filming began in New York City on October 14, 2021, and concluded on March 24, 2022. The series premiered on February 17, 2023 on

Reception

The review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 57% approval rating based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The website's critical consensus states, "''Hello Tomorrow!'' is visually striking enough to periodically distract from its rambling story and thinly sketched characters, but overall, this first season fails to live up to its potential."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned a score of 60 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "Mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

''Hello Tomorrow!''
on

* {{Apple TV+ Apple TV+ original programming 2020s American comedy-drama television series 2020s American science fiction television series English-language television shows 2023 American television series debuts Television series by Media Rights Capital Retrofuturism