Nathan Fielder has been creating elaborate fake scenarios for over a decade now. But, as elaborate as things like “Dumb Starbucks” was, nothing compared to how intricate and complex his creations were in the first season of The Rehearsal. Now, in the second season, Fielder’s ability to create fake role-playing scenarios now extends to public safety initiatives.
THE REHEARSAL SEASON 2: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: A captain and a first officer in an airline cockpit.
The Gist: It seems that there’s a disagreement between the pilot and the first officer about whether they should make a turn or not. Suddenly, it’s apparent that they’re going to crash. The plane crashes, we see flames — and Nathan Fielder.
Fielder is standing outside a flight simulator, observing two actors who have memorized the transcript of a recording taken from the black box of a doomed flight. The next thing we see is Fielder watching former NTSB board member John Goglia giving a lecture, part of his ploy to ask him for help and advice, given that, well, Goglia is a “serious man” and Fielder is supposed to be making a comedy show.
He sits down with Goglia and gives him his theory, after studying the transcripts from dozens of doomed commercial flights: First officers, who are supposed to take over the controls if they think the captain is making fatal mistakes, aren’t being assertive enough when challenging the captains of these flights. Apparently, the NTSB board thought that, too, but their recommendations to address it were never adopted by the FAA. Of course, Fielder wonders if he can use his HBO money to recreate scenarios that led to these communication problems, given the fact that HBO is expecting him to make a comedy show.
In order to figure out where that communication fails, Fielder and his film crew follow around Moody, a young first officer for a commuter airline. Of course, restrictions in how much he can really follow a pilot through an airport leads Fielder to build one of his most elaborate recreations yet, all the while worried that Moody’s communication skills are hampering him in his life, much less during his job.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Rehearsal has become a much more elaborate version of what Fielder did over a decade ago on Nathan For You.
Our Take: At this stage, you are either a Nathan Fielder fan or you’re not. The Rehearsal‘s first season, which showed Fielder’s efforts to recreate scenes for the people he help get more involved and intricate as the season went along, shows that messing with his audience is his happy place, despite the near-monotone delivery he gives his narration and the interactions he has with people. The second season is his most ambitious project yet, and we’re not completely sure if he’s serious or just going to spend six episodes pulling our leg.
We understand that’s the crux of what Fielder does, but he’s right when he says that there needs to be funny things happening along the way, or else his HBO overlords won’t be happy. There is only one big laugh in the first episode, but we expect that to change as the season goes along.
The real question is: Do we want to go on this ride with him? Will it get to a point where viewers get tired of the schtick? We’re not quite sure how we feel about this after the first episode.
Sex and Skin: None.
Parting Shot: Nathan looks at video of failed attempts at air flight back at the turn of the 20th century, attempts considered comical. “Maybe a clown can change the world,” he says in his voice over.
Sleeper Star: We’ll give this to John Goglia, mainly because of his frustration with Congress, FAA bureaucracy, and, well government in general.
Most Pilot-y Line: Not sure how confident we’d be in Moody’s ability to fly a plane after seeing where he lives and how he deals with his girlfriend. In fact, after being introduced to his girlfriend, we wonder how in the hell they ever got together in the first place.
Our Call: STREAM IT. We have to give Nathan Fielder credit for how ambitious he is in the second season of The Rehearsal. What we wonder is if this is going to make for good comedy, given that’s what HBO is paying him to produce.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Rehearsal’ Season 2 On HBO, Where Nathan Fielder Uses All His Skills To Try To Solve A Huge Aviation Problem appeared first on Decider.
