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Alienating, awkward, anxiety-inducing: why The Rehearsal is TV’s most fascinating show
The second season of Nathan Fielder’s singular series takes even bigger swings and while there has been criticism of his techniques, it remains an act of magicWhat do couples counseling, a reality-singing competition, three cloned Yorkies, the content moderation of Paramount+ Germany and aviation safety all have in common? Virtually nothing, except the interest of television mastermind Nathan Fielder, who braids such disparate concepts together in the galaxy-brained second season of The Rehearsal.In just four episodes, the genre-bending show of elaborate simulations – essentially, extremely realistic role-playing in the name of preparing people for uncomfortable situations – has provided some of the most compelling, bizarre and dementedly brilliant scenes on television this year: a shy commercial airline pilot on a first date, accompanied by 20 actors mirroring his every move. Fielder, sporting his series uniform laptop harness, peering into a “wrecked” cockpit through pretend flames. The sight of the Lizard Lounge – an exact replica of Brooklyn’s Alligator Lounge, where Fielder was tending bar just last month – inside an exact replica of a section of Houston’s George Bush airport. And in a scene that was shockingly transgressive even for a docu-comedy auteur who has built a career on stretching the outer boundaries of reality television, the sight of Fielder, shaven, rubber-capped and diapered, suckling from the papier-mache teat of a puppet 50s housewife as part of a canonically insane, deeply sincere attempt to relive the life – and thus absorb the wisdom – of Captain Sully Sullenberger (of Tom Hanks biopic, crashing into the Hudson fame). Continue reading...
The second season of Nathan Fielder’s singular series takes even bigger swings and while there has been criticism of his techniques, it remains an act of magic
What do couples counseling, a reality-singing competition, three cloned Yorkies, the content moderation of Paramount+ Germany and aviation safety all have in common? Virtually nothing, except the interest of television mastermind Nathan Fielder, who braids such disparate concepts together in the galaxy-brained second season of The Rehearsal.
In just four episodes, the genre-bending show of elaborate simulations – essentially, extremely realistic role-playing in the name of preparing people for uncomfortable situations – has provided some of the most compelling, bizarre and dementedly brilliant scenes on television this year: a shy commercial airline pilot on a first date, accompanied by 20 actors mirroring his every move. Fielder, sporting his series uniform laptop harness, peering into a “wrecked” cockpit through pretend flames. The sight of the Lizard Lounge – an exact replica of Brooklyn’s Alligator Lounge, where Fielder was tending bar just last month – inside an exact replica of a section of Houston’s George Bush airport. And in a scene that was shockingly transgressive even for a docu-comedy auteur who has built a career on stretching the outer boundaries of reality television, the sight of Fielder, shaven, rubber-capped and diapered, suckling from the papier-mache teat of a puppet 50s housewife as part of a canonically insane, deeply sincere attempt to relive the life – and thus absorb the wisdom – of Captain Sully Sullenberger (of Tom Hanks biopic, crashing into the Hudson fame). Continue reading...
