Hello Tomorrow! Doesn’t Need Its Gimmick

Hello Tomorrow! Starts With An Intriguing Premise

Hello Tomorrow! is perhaps one of the most unique sci-fi shows to come out in a long time. It’s got such an odd combination of factors that somehow come together to deliver an engaging drama and mystery revolving around a big, central question. But, unlike a lot of other dramas, there’s no hero. This is a show where almost everyone is a scam artist—though some of them don’t actually know they’re running a scam.

But it’s the setting that really puts this apart from other series, more than the core moment-to-moment plot points. A charismatic con man talking his way into someone’s money is one thing. A charismatic con man convincing people to buy property on the moon is another.

Yes, you read that right. Hello Tomorrow! is set in alternative history, heavily inspired by old ideas of what the future might be like. Every car is a hover car. Clunky robots handle a ton of random tasks. And every so often, we see a rocket fly to the moon and are told that people regularly live up there. But that’s the mystery—that’s the thing that makes this all the more interesting. We don’t know if what the main character is selling is a real opportunity. At least by episode three, we never see these lunar homes outside of marketing material, and we see do constant delaying tactics, customer service dead-ends, and more. It’s pretty clear someone is going to the moon, but that’s about all we know.

This is not a heist show, though. Hello Tomorrow! has an appeal, but it’s not one of seeing competent people pull off something. We do see various manipulative tactics (most of them involving lying), but—at least in my experience—the best draw to watch this show is seeing the moral complexity of these people.

Because, like I said, most of them don’t seem to know it’s a scam. And most of them have likable qualities. The main character is absolutely doing something criminal, but he’s also a dad trying to secretly reconnect with his son that he abandoned. Another is trying to make enough to money to support his growing family. Every main actor is doing such a delicate dance of presenting these people as flawed humans who aren’t malevolent but are morally compromised.

Which makes the growing sense of everything about to fall apart—for a lot of truths to come out—very tense. You get the impression that this scam was running remarkably unobserved, that the system was running like a heist, but these new circumstances keep causing them to make mistakes that wouldn’t have occurred before. There’s increasing chaos bubbling.

But the narrative and structural moves to get to those dynamics have some issues. Broad picture, this setting—while distinct—offers up a lot of questions, and only gets more confusing the longer you think about it. I’m no expert, but I get the impression it’s meant to still be, basically, the 50s, just with more sci-fi technology. The media they watch. The gender dynamics. The way they talk—including a very unnecessary use of an ableist term—are all like that. And I can’t tell what the artistic decision exactly was. Is this a vehicle for commentary? Is this a period piece but with unique, attention-grabbing visuals?

All The Sci-Fi Stuff In Hello Tomorrow! Isn’t Needed

For instance, we get a plotline about a woman breaking free from a horrible marriage she’s been in for so very long. So that feels like commentary about strict gender roles. But we also have Black characters who don’t experience any of the overt stuff you might expect in the 50s. So, is this an alternative history where only certain problems are presented to the audience? Or, is that one plotline actually just meant to be unrelated to any commentary?

And, in addition to all this, Hello Tomorrow! also starts off with a bad choice. The inciting incident of the whole show is a shocking moment of a woman being put in a coma. Or, basically, being fridged. The main two male characters—the father and son—are both motivated heavily by that happening, and she gets so little screen time. Perhaps the intention of this scene was to present this world as having a lot of awful stuff bubbling under the surface, but between the frequent references to infidelity, violence, and poverty, all glazed over with chrome shine, the point was already made. We didn’t have to make the scene go that way. There were other options.

Really, though I like Hello Tomorrow! having all these little sci-fi elements, it would’ve likely worked better if it had just been a drama with a historical setting—and mostly because modern phones or the internet would’ve made it too easy for the mystery to be revealed early. The moon being an ultimate perceived escape does add stuff to the story, and to the themes, but the core—and best—parts of the series are mostly dialogue between the sales team, or when our main character is trying to hide stuff. In hindsight, the tech and special effects feel more like pure marketing. More like a hook meant to draw people in. If you do find yourself wanting to watch it, just keep that in mind. Hello Tomorrow! is a good show—certainly damn entertaining—but it won’t hold up to worldbuilding questions you might have.

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