Hello Tomorrow!

The production design is a constant wonder and curiosity, if not a positive distraction. ... Created by Amit Bhalla and Lucas Jansen, "Hello Tomorrow!" is an ingenious construction, a thoroughly realized architectural confection and a mystery. ... The cast members are all pros, charismatic even when their characters are intemperate.

“Hello Tomorrow!” is impressive overall, not least of all thanks to some extraordinary production design. ... But at points midway through the season, the show can be redundant, giving us big reveals of things we already knew.

This is a warm and funny but also scalpel-sharp portrait of a capitalist society that runs smoothly on casters but always hankers for more. ... It’s a treat to watch Crudup slowly reveal the despair behind the dazzle.

By the end of the third episode, the studied slow pace of the narrative begins to grate a little, and you suspect the show may be offering more in performance and slick direction (the ‘50s tableaus are seriously impressive) than it is in story. Nevertheless, even as the plot decelerates and you start to wonder where the payoff might be, and if it might come too late, the uniqueness of Hello Tomorrow! is its own reward.

Hello Tomorrow! has yet to develop the depth, complexity, or nuance that would earn it more holistic comparisons to Mad Men, which gave us so many indelible characters. But maybe Jack’s reckless optimism is contagious, because I came out of the finale convinced that the sky—if not the surface of the moon—is the limit.

The net effect isn’t perfect, but the series should effectively pull the audience that wants to know where that rocket goes from one episode to the next. Because while Scarlett O’Hara famously said, “Tomorrow is another day,” thankfully, Hello Tomorrow! isn’t just another streaming show, but rather the kind of out-there concept that dares to shoot for the moon.

Like many programs of the streaming age, this one probably would be better as a movie – Jack continues to find ways to kick the can of truth down the road into a potential second season — but ultimately “Hello Tomorrow!” made me hope the show will have enough tomorrows to reach an adequate resolution.

Even with the underwritten characters, this show has enough interesting concepts and narrative twists to keep viewers engaged. It will be unfairly compared to the better “Severance” because of its home and high concept, but I hope "Hello Tomorrow!" continues to build on the many promising ideas and intriguing characters.

“Hello Tomorrow” packs a punch — and looks incredible while doing so — but can’t quite lasso the ideas it wants to convey. The moon here, as always, remains not quite attainable.

It’s mildly disappointing, though, when we travel through 10 episodes and so many questions are left unanswered. It just feels like the delivery never quite lives up to the sales pitch.

Clearly there are meant to be modern parallels in this tale of hucksters duping people who will believe whatever they want to believe. But the themes never quite gel, leaving even the histories of more complex characters like Jack feeling undercooked.

Hello Tomorrow! frustrates with its weak narrative, but the show does, in its visuals, hit on a bleak truth: We’re often doing nothing more than reinventing the wheel—and then calling that a breakthrough.

It’s worth streaming Hello Tomorrow! for the visuals and for Crudup’s lead performance. But it’s going to need to show us more than what it’s showing in its first episode for us to continue past the first handful of episodes.

While the first episodes are fun to watch – particularly with all of the devices the production designers have created – it’s never clear where it’s headed. ... “Hello Tomorrow” takes a while to show its hand and, then, it’s likely bluffing. With Crudup at the helm, this could go anywhere.

“Hello Tomorrow” may look inviting in its bizarre blend of iconography, but it’s frustratingly conventional at its core. For all Jack’s talk of dreams, he’s no Don Draper.

Stories about seduction need to seduce the viewer, but Hello Tomorrow! evokes dread instead of danger, and, over the course of 10 episodes, the vibe wears thin. So, while the action picks up in the final episodes, it isn't quite enough to redeem the entire enterprise.

There is a whole bundle of talent with not much to do and no direction. As with everything Apple – the show may lack substance, but its production values are impressive.

In general, “Hello Tomorrow!” breezes past the world-building, hoping, not unlike Jack, that you’ll get too caught up in the pretty pictures to worry about the details. And damned if it doesn’t work, some of the time. ... But the series is so stylized, not just in the design but also in the performances and the “Guys and Dolls” dialogue, that the characters often feel cartoony and unconvincing. What is thoroughly, achingly real is the pervasive theme of lies and why people tell them.

Hello Tomorrow! has much to say about hope, delusion and the American dream, but struggles to craft characters grounded enough to sell its ideas.

The series still can’t decide whether it’s a comedy or drama. ... The necessary tension and conflict to drive their stories home is muted by a weak narrative. Momentum is an issue.

The slight plot never quite catches up to the concept, and the production design consistently outshines the mysteries. The show plods along at a strangely restrained pace and perhaps should have taken the advice of its protagonist and remembered the “Wow”.

Although the cinematography foregrounds the fun technology, the plot never investigates its consequences. ... The effect — not helped by the flatness of most of these characters — isn’t nuance or complexity or even Coen-esque quirk. Haneefah Wood elevates her material, and both Hank Azaria and Jacki Weaver offer comic relief, but this series feels like satire in search of a target.

The ideas are unrewarding enough that the worked-over look of the show grows tiresome, as though it’s covering for a lack in the series’ writing.

Wasting a charmingly slick performance from star Billy Crudup, it’s a retro-futuristic affair that’s built out of unoriginal scrap and hollow beneath its shiny surface.