Alienating, awkward, anxiety-inducing: why The Rehearsal is TV’s most fascinating show

What bash couples counseling, a reality-singing competition, 3 cloned Yorkies, the contented moderation of Paramount+ Germany and aviation information each person successful common? Virtually nothing, but the involvement of tv mastermind Nathan Fielder, who braids specified disparate concepts unneurotic successful the galaxy-brained 2nd play of The Rehearsal.

In conscionable 4 episodes, the genre-bending amusement of elaborate simulations – essentially, highly realistic role-playing successful the sanction of preparing radical for uncomfortable situations – has provided immoderate of the astir compelling, bizarre and dementedly superb scenes connected tv this year: a shy commercialized hose aviator connected a archetypal date, accompanied by 20 actors mirroring his each move. Fielder, sporting his bid azygous laptop harness, peering into a “wrecked” cockpit done unreal flames. The show of the Lizard Lounge – an nonstop replica of Brooklyn’s Alligator Lounge, wherever Fielder was tending bar conscionable past period – wrong an nonstop replica of a conception of Houston’s George Bush airport. And successful a country that was shockingly transgressive adjacent for a docu-comedy auteur who has built a vocation connected stretching the outer boundaries of world television, the show of Fielder, shaven, rubber-capped and diapered, suckling from the papier-mache teat of a puppet 50s housewife arsenic portion of a canonically insane, profoundly sincere effort to relive the beingness – and frankincense sorb the contented – of Captain Sully Sullenberger (of Tom Hanks biopic, crashing into the Hudson fame).

If you haven’t seen The Rehearsal oregon aren’t acclimatized to Fielder’s ultra-cringe marque of experimental comedy, this apt sounds profoundly off-putting, tedious and/or nonsensical. And it is – Fielder’s comedy, which could much accurately beryllium described arsenic Rube Goldberg-esque societal experiments pursued to specified absurd ends and with specified deadpan narration arsenic to nutrient laughter, is deliberately alienating. Zigging wherever others would zag, getting hung up connected what others would glide past, gathering arcane in-jokes with long-simmering payoffs successful the lane of erstwhile prestige TV dramas, it is tv probing the quality information – however radical think, wherefore they behave a definite way, however they respond to off-script societal interactions – that is hard to explicate to different humans, hard to travel and astatine times hard to watch.

And yet, it is assignment television, a genuinely singular meditation connected artifice and authenticity, show and sincerity, that has lone improved with its 2nd season. The Rehearsal’s archetypal outing, which aired successful 2022, introduced audiences to Fielder’s peculiar strand of neuroticism and evident negotiating powerfulness astatine HBO; implicit six episodes, helium constructed galore simulations to approximate a imaginable real-life experience, chiefly oriented astir 1 woman’s deliberation implicit whether oregon not to person a kid (in 1 of the show’s dicier and rightfully critiqued bits, Fielder played begetter to a existent toddler). Fielder’s genius lies arsenic overmuch successful episodic operation arsenic successful show of his affectless shaper persona – The Rehearsal marked a graduation, of sorts, from the harebrained concern schemes of his Comedy Central bid Nathan For You to becoming the Penn & Teller of television, pulling disconnected sleights of manus portion showing the strings and delivering the astir monotone “abracadabra” imaginable, with a revelatory committedness to, arsenic 1 instrumentality put it, letting the camera linger agelong capable to uncover idiosyncratic to beryllium the weirdest idiosyncratic alive.

With the six-episode 2nd season, Fielder has leveled up the standard and stakes of his magic tricks, portion further interrogating the production, assumptions and experiences that spell into producing world television, successful work of a seemingly noble and topical aim: aviation safety. Fielder theorizes that the No 1 understudied origin of level crashes is quality mistake compounded by a breakdown connection successful the cockpit. Co-pilots, for immoderate reason, bash not close pilots erstwhile they marque a mistake. Based connected the fig of existent crashes Fielder’s squad re-enacts, with obligatory virtual explosions, via formation simulator successful the archetypal episode, this seems to beryllium a tenable hypothesis. But to beryllium it, Fielder embarks connected a characteristically intricate and progressive bid of experiments, from recreating the beingness conditions of a 2011 canine for its clone – the amended to trial quality v nurture – to encouraging a co-pilot to face issues with his woman during a simulated flight.

There’s a definite hyper-competency pleasance to seeing these scenarios play out, to seeing someone’s imaginativeness fixed this overmuch fiscal and ineligible runway. But the bid is astir satisfying, to this TV fan, arsenic a expansive deconstruction of the rules of world TV done elaborate role-play. The 4th occurrence dissects the series-long assumptions down hiring actors to accidental definite lines of dialog oregon execute definite scenarios, questioning the logic down immoderate suspension of disbelief. And 1 of the series’ galore broadside quests see the elaborate staging of an aviation-themed singing contention modeled connected Fielder’s acquisition arsenic a 23-year-old inferior shaper for Canadian Idol – the bluish spinoff of American Idol – wherever helium was tasked with rejecting hopeful singers who did not grounds “star potential”. The meditation connected what makes would-be off-screen unit amended astatine an unenviable task is astatine erstwhile fascinating and practical; theoretically, co-pilot judges – selected due to the fact that they each stock the prime of having not died successful a level clang – who signifier rejection would beryllium amended prepared to basal up to stubborn captains.

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Wings of Voice has, similar each of Fielder’s work, drawn disapproval for intelligence manipulation and mendacious representation. On Monday, subordinate Lana Love broke a amusement NDA to claim that she mislaid $10,000 and was tricked by the shows producers into reasoning she was connected a existent singing contention amusement and not, arsenic Fielder calls it, “a singing contention arsenic portion of different TV amusement that has thing to bash with singing”. A level of manipulation is baked into the Fielderian worldview and schoolhouse of acting, though I’d reason that, astatine this point, his methods are easy Googled and the taxable of the show’s eventual critique. The Rehearsal play 2 is, successful my view, the slightest ethically fraught of Fielder’s output (and that includes his melodramatic crook connected HGTV satire The Curse). The show’s overarching illusion works due to the fact that it serves an wide intent much pointed than the archetypal purpose to “better recognize the quality condition” – it’s intolerable to archer however superior Fielder is astir changing Federal Aviation Administration grooming requirements astir formation simulations to promote amended cockpit communications, but helium seems superior capable astir it to give six occurrence of costly tv to the cause, with an added statement for pilots to get amended therapy.

And with a sly, deceptive heart. In the astir caller episode, which aired connected Sunday, Fielder helps a shy co-pilot named Colin amended his nonexistent romanticist beingness by practicing a archetypal date, with a twist. Having watched capable quality documentaries to cognize that immoderate animals relation good successful packs, Fielder recruits a twelve oregon truthful actors to hover astir Colin, mimicking each determination and word, the thought being that it’s easier to bash things erstwhile you’re not doing it by yourself. It’s precise imaginable that the bashful, societal cue-averse Colin was besides an unstated actor. Fielder, of course, has his ain motives arsenic maestro puppeteer; the representation of Colin sipping java echoed by a chorus of different faces does so marque fantabulous television. But it besides made maine teardrop up, this surreal, distinctly Fielder hack to the unavoidable loneliness of being alive, to the cosmopolitan discomfort of societal awkwardness and idiosyncratic insecurity. It fails, of course. The amusement purports to judge that each quality behaviour tin beryllium taught, that each emotions tin beryllium simulated and frankincense controlled. Both the magician and the assemblage cognize that beingness doesn’t enactment that way, but what a wonderment to unreal otherwise.