Hello Tomorrow!: Your Brighter Tomorrow, Today

February 20, 2023 4:23 AM - Season 1, Episode 1

Take it from Jack Billings: The life you've always wanted is just one great deal away.
posted by ellieBOA (6 comments total)

I enjoyed this episode and am looking forward to more!

I joked with my spouse that the show was so visually appealing to a particular demographic that it was like the outcome of an experiment like "what if we made a show entirely based on letting set dressers and designers have fun?"

And my spouse pointed out that, in a way, "Hello Tomorrow" is a show that starts with a particular (pre-existing!) aesthetic and then asks: what would have to be true about this world in order for that aesthetic to exist and dominate in the lived world? And I nod in an agreeing manner at that.
posted by brainwane at 5:34 AM on February 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

What if the Jetsons was real life!
posted by ellieBOA at 6:21 AM on February 20, 2023

Right! As I was watching the opening credits I thought: this was made by people who grew up on the Jetsons and now want to try an adult treatment of that premise.
posted by brainwane at 6:29 AM on February 20, 2023

So I figured this would be a big ol' grift just from the one trailer I saw a while back (which itself raises the question of WHY DOES APPLE NOT ADVERTISE THEIR SHOWS FOR ARMSTRONG'S SAKE), but it looks, based on this one, like it's actually a tiny grift? That's it just Jack making up the entire thing by conning one dementia patient who had a TV show a while back, then using his "endorsement" to sell a fantasy? And no one has actually so much as tried to get to their lunar swampland yet? Even the other salesmen have been conned?

I love this show more the more I think about it, and I've only been awake for like two hours since I saw this episode.
posted by Etrigan at 6:34 AM on February 20, 2023 [1 favorite]

i wish they'd adapt some philip k dick stuff using this aesthetic
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 1:18 PM on February 21, 2023

I've always wondered why they were called oyster crackers. Got reminded to look it up. I've seen packaged oyster crackers in the wild, possibly in S. Carolina. I prefer them to saltines for cream stews, more (acrylamide) toasted Maillard crust per unit and they stay crunchy much longer - yet yield themselves to soak and savour on once breached, also thanks to the crust. Screw the minutely increased dietary acrylamide risk.

Intrigued by the future that never was. I need to check out W. Gibsons The Gernsback Continuum (1981) again.

Huh, the wikipedia article says that there's a 1993 adaptation, Tomorrow Calling by Film4/ Channel 4.

Is there anyone in this thread who isn't yet aware of the computer game Fallout alternate universe? It's a ... wonderful(?) environment that shows the worst and best(est. possible. considering.. nowo tofwarra ty
posted by porpoise at 8:37 PM on February 21, 2023