🎬 #175 Hard To Describe, Easy To Love.
Feels nice to be writing this again, this week I’m talking about a tv show - but a show that’s not really like anything else - even its first season. I love work that can’t really be pinned down, that challenges form and format. I hope you’ll enjoy giving this week’s recommendation a go.
Happy viewing,
Bry
THE REHEARSAL: SEASON 2
2025 Dir Nathan Fielder
240-300 mins [ 6 episodes]
My deep, deep love and respect of Nathan Fielder has reached new heights. Loved the first season of The Rehearsal - that helped people ‘rehearse’ moments in life in order to have reps in before they tackled the real deal. Or to see if they’d like to do something you don’t usually get to experience first - like have children.
Season two takes that concept and makes it bigger and bolder - while giving it higher stakes. Those stakes are Nathan’s goal to make air travel even safer by helping pilots communicate better in the cockpit, through elaborate role plays. His theory is that first officers often don’t feel comfortable challenging the pilot in charge if they spot an error. This has led to an alarming number of plane crashes.
What I loved about it, aside from the fact that I’m also drawn to airline disasters, is that it goes to surprising places - this isn’t just pilots having ‘rehearsals’ to communicate better. This goes deep - testing if behaviour can be transferred - first in the clones of a dog - then applied to people. We see if pilot’s relationship issues can have impacts on their performance in the cock-pit. This is absurdist laugh out loud funny, intricately plotted and like season one, is really about Nathan discovering something about himself in the end.
The season finale is particularly excellent - showing how far an artist goes for their art. This is really TV unlike anything else out there, conceptually challenging and able to weave so many seemingly disparate threads together into something deeply affecting and satisfying.
* Available now on NOW TV in the UK and HBO MAX in the US.
Fact: The overall concept of the show was inspired by a few episodes in Fielder’s Nathan For You - his first show for the Comedy Channel.