In Apple TV+’s Hello Tomorrow!, ‘retro-future’ series set in the 1950s, Billy Crudup’s moon condo salesman stars along with robots
- In a ‘retro future’ series inspired by 1950s car salesmen’s guides, Billy Crudup plays a con man who sells ‘lunar residencies’
- Co-creators of the show Lucas Jansen and Amit Bhalla talk about their hatred of utopias and how they mixed typical ’50s scenes with robots
Blink and you might miss it, but a man wearing a business suit and a jetpack casually blasts off in the first episode of the new series Hello Tomorrow!
He waves to his wife outside his suburban home and soars into the sky. Below him is a fascinating mix of 1950s-era cars with tail fins that hover over the ground and robots that do everything from walk the dog to deliver the post.
It seems like the utopia we always dreamed about until we see a driverless truck accidentally smash into a homeowner. Not all is perfect in this futuristic world – and the creators want it that way, studded with misery and human quirks.
“Utopias terrify us,” says Lucas Jansen, who co-created the show with Amit Bhalla. “The ’bots can do a lot for you, but they can’t relieve you of your human burden. And we’re ever so grateful and would hope that that continues to be the case as our society progresses.”
The Apple TV+ series taps into the alternate-reality retro cool of the ’50s that’s so popular right now – see the film Don’t Worry Darling and the streaming series For All Mankind – as it explores the American dream.
