Over the last two decades, comedian, actor and filmmaker Nathan Fielder has slowly been becoming one of Televisions most important voices for what exactly a cable television show can really be.
His career started as many do, through comedy courses and small sketches he uploaded to his YouTube channel in the late 2000s, a stepping stone that can still be seen his work today, including Even The Best (2007) which involves Nathan singing awkwardly to a girl, leading to him at the end of the sketch acknowledging the presence of a camera. This theme of cameras and how we act with and without them has been one of the main driving forces of what defines Nathan Fielders career.
Nathan For You (2013-2017) marked Nathan’s first breakthrough, with the Comedy Central show following Nathan’s often failed plans to help out small businesses while also having the expertise to create comedy out of everyday situations. Since then he has been in collaboration with acclaimed filmmaker Benny Safdie to create his first fictional show in The Curse (2023) which once again shares the themes of how television hosts act on and off screen.
But his most experimental and boundary pushing project so far comes in The Rehearsal (2022-), the comedy/ drama documentary gives real people the chance to rehearse moments in life they couldn’t otherwise prepare for, be that experiencing parenthood from 1-18 years to see if it something someone like Angela Sankovich would like or not. While effected by Covid filming regulations, season one was able to expertly confront the ethics of such a rehearsal process, with even Nathan himself becoming a co-parent with Angela, creating a unique situation of a director juggling the creative process with what could be an important decision in Angela’s life and eventually becoming a more serious when Nathan is forced, within the show to confront the problem of a young actor Remy, playing the son of Nathan, becoming attached to the idea of Nathan becoming his real father, as he has never had a father figure in his life.
This reality would usually be a wake up call in any other show and would be cut altogether, but instead, as Nathan always does he confronts that reality, not just the shows reality, his reality, or what he wants us to see of it, that is exactly the genius of The Rehearsal, just when you think you have it nailed down for what it is, Nathan pulls the rug, over and over and over. Which is exactly what season two continues on with.
MAINLY SPOILER FREE FOR SEASON TWO
Plane crashes, airports, pilots and co-pilots. Season two of the Rehearsal is a drastic change in topic from the Parental chaos of season one, but within the first minute of season two, we see Nathan and his iconic laptop appear from the fiery wreckage of a rehearsed plane crash, scanning the psychological relationship of the pilots with his impenetrable mind, this is Nathan with a blank HBO paycheck, doing whatever he wants. Season Two follows Nathan tackling the real life problem of how Co-pilots’ ability to speak up to Pilots during emergencies can solve and possibly save many future plane crashes. You would think this would provide a boring season but using his genius, he continues to escalate laughs out of everyday people, while still never getting too far from his goal of getting his method into Government. Be that a Co-pilot confronting his worries of his girlfriend cheating, another co-pilots nervous love life, digging through and surreally rehearsing real life accidents and pilots lives from birth like Chesley “Sully” Sullenberg and how his founding of the band Evanescence on his iPod may have saved lives. There is so much original comedy and unexpected heart felt moments found in this show that are confronted by Nathan and his cast of personalities. Guessing where this show is going is just as thrilling as seeing Nathan dressed as a baby being breast fed by a giant version of Sully’s mother to find how it affected his crash. Yes it sounds like a hard recommendation and is even harder to write for, but this may just be this decades new television event, we just don’t know it yet.
‘The Rehearsal’ season two finale airs on HBO on the 25th of May in the US, UK audiences will be able to watch on Sky Comedy from the 26th of May.
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