Forget 'Severance,' Apple TV's Retro Sci-Fi Series Is a Masterpiece From Start to Finish

While mainstream streaming platforms chase broad cultural footprints with massive fantasy adaptations and sprawling space operas, Apple TV has quietly built a distinct roster of science fiction.

Platforms and studios have continually attempted to carve out their own market-cornering science fiction shows, ranging from Netflix’s 3-Body Problem and Prime Video’s Fallout to Disney+’s extensive Star Wars content.

Despite those efforts, Apple TV has emerged as the undisputed champion of sci-fi on streaming. Hit projects like Severance, Silo, Foundation, and Pluribus have dominated both in-house streaming charts and wider audience discourse. Yet, this broad range of genre projects creates higher odds that compelling series go unjustly under the radar. One such series is Hello Tomorrow!, which debuted in 2023 and features a fantastic performance from Billy Crudup.

Set in a retro-futuristic America with a 1950s aesthetic complete with automated bartenders and robot dogs, Hello Tomorrow! follows a salesman named Jack Billings, played by Crudup. Jack travels the country selling timeshares for a supposed residential community on the moon.

As the classic idea of a traveling salesman who values the sale above all else, Jack struggles to form meaningful connections. Viewers grow increasingly suspicious about whether these moon residences actually exist, especially as Jack continually pushes back customers’ launch dates and challenges trust in his reliability as a narrator.

Beneath the sci-fi sales pitch lies an emotional tale about Jack’s relationship with his estranged son, Joey, played by Nicholas Podany. Jack hasn’t seen Joey in 18 years after leaving him and his mother. Following the accidental death of Joey’s mother by an automated delivery drone, Joey tries to move into one of Jack’s timeshares.

Jack denies the request and instead hires Joey as an assistant in an attempt to rebuild their relationship. Throughout the season, underlying tension persists because Jack does not tell his son that he is his father.

Rather than using world-building as a mere glossy layer, Hello Tomorrow! folds its setting into its thematic message. The retro-futuristic world intentionally avoids a utopian feel. From the opening scene—featuring a man sitting in a bar after losing his job to a robot—the technology highlights how far people are from utopia.

Set during an era when the American Dream was at its peak, the series pairs superior technology with a sense of lost hope, prompting Jack to remark that despite a world of plenty, everyone still has a shit deal.

Forget 'Severance,' Apple TV's Retro Sci-Fi Series Is a Masterpiece From Start to Finish — Photo: headlinesplus.com

Billy Crudup anchors this delicate balance of hope, cynicism, and emotive nuance. He employs salesman tactics to distract those around him from his inner pain while occasionally dropping his facade to reveal internal conflict. This transforms Jack from an over-the-top, frustrating salesman into a tragic figure.