The following contains spoilers from the premiere of Hello Tomorrow!, which is now streaming its first three episodes on Apple TV+.
How stellar of a salesman is Hello Tomorrow!‘s Jack Billings? Well, as revealed at the end of the Apple TV+ dramedy’s first episode, Jack can even get you to sign on the dotted line for… something that doesn’t even exist!
Hello Tomorrow! follows Jack and his Brightside sales team as they endeavor to dazzle regular folk with the prospect of buying a timeshare on the moon, somewhere in the Sea of Serenity. To that end, Jack (played by The Morning Show Emmy winner Billy Crudup) has big words and eloquent monologues at the ready, inviting people to move past today and embrace tomorrow, on the moon.
But as the first episode came to a close, viewers had the rugged pulled out from under them. It became clear that the next departure for Brightside had not been delayed by this, that or the other thing, but because there is no lunar condo development to inhabit!
We saw that Brightside spokesman Buck Manzell, best known to prospective buyers as TV’s “Space Sheriff,” has not been video-ing into Jack’s presentations from his own lunar home, but from an assisted living facility. (Buck, FWIW, does believe himself to be on the moon and that Jack is just visiting.) What’s more, enigmatic Brightside founder “Jenkins” is actually the name of Buck’s pet turtle. And the “moon rocks” that Jack pulls out of his pants pocket to close deals with entranced prospects? They re merely plucked out of Jenkins’ aquarium.
Speaking with TVLine, Billy Crudup — just like a slick salesman — put the best spin on Jack’s con.
“I’m not convinced there’s not a Brightside,” he offered. “It might not be the one that Jack’s selling, but like any great sales pitch there’s always a little bit of truth in there. Just enough to make you go, ‘Maybe that is possible.’ I think Jack is such an expert salesman that he knows there’s got to be at least some truth to his sale.”
But why and how is Jack pulling off this grand scam?
“That’s a great question. And I think that’s one for [showrunners] Amit [Bhalla] and Lucas [Jansen],” Crudup hedged. “I think they would love to draw it out as long as possible because there’s such great tension in that idea of, ‘When can we all live in a shared factual reality? Or is that not something human beings can do?’ We all have different imaginative ideas about where we are, and Amit and Lucas are going to put it off [that answer] as long as Jack has put off being a father.”
What did you think of Hello Tomorrow!‘s maiden mission? And will you keep watching?