Conner’s Critique: The Rehearsal – Season One

If you’re a fan of Nathan Fielder you most likely know of a show called Nathan For You. In that prior show he specifically used his knowledge and skills at business to create outlandish and insane concepts to help promote and support small businesses around the world. Now he is back with a brand new show on HBO called The Rehearsal.

The concept behind The Rehearsal is that with enough energy, time, and money you can pre-plan out any possible situation to get the most favorable result for somebody. It is with this in mind that Nathan Fielder created the show.

As always our reviews will be reviewing this series by breaking it down to its story, acting, and overall.

Story 6/10

We normally wouldn’t talk about story if this was a traditional Reality TV show, and to some extent that is what The Rehearsal is, but there are so many more factors. The show is unscripted, but the situations and the editing almost turns it into a scripted story. His pre-planned setups help an unknown entity through a situation, a situation that is heavily rehearsed through the show.

“What starts off as a seemingly earnest concept and idea about trying to help others, slowly begins to devolves into Nathan trying to understand humanity.”

The rehearsals of the show are so extensive that even Nathan Fielder even goes as far to recreate whole sections of the show once more with actors replaying real people within the show, and it goes deeper and deeper. What starts off as a seemingly earnest concept and idea about trying to help others, slowly begins to devolves into Nathan trying to understand humanity.

It’s amazing how quickly the show goes off the rails from its original concept, and and in a way that is incredibly very Nathan Fielder.

Acting 7/10

While the show is very similar to reality television, a lot of the people within the show are acting a specific way to get a desired result, or to force a situation. Some of the amazing standouts of the show is Liam Risinger who plays a version of six year old Adam, the fake child that Nathan and an unwitting participant, Angela, are raising through a fast forward childhood.

While Liam starts off as just a child trying to do a job playing a child, he slowly becomes a child playing another child for a man trying to understand how parenting works.

The whole situation is incredibly creepy yet incredibly deep, all of the same time. Liam, although a child, does a great job allowing the situation to continue in the most professional way possible.

Of all the people in the show, Liam is the best.

Overall 6/10

If you like awkward comedy, and have a dark sense of humor, then this show will be a great series for you. The fact that it has a second season coming worries me. How deep off the rails is this show going to become. A whole second season will just give Nathan a ton more cash for him to use to abuse the process into awkward hilarious comedy.

It’s going to be quite a wild ride.

Conner’s Final Thoughts

One of the most interesting things I’ve noticed about Nathan in the series has to do specifically with his adapting into another person. When he wants to understand someone else’s point of view he goes so far as to literally dress like and act like the person.

When he is just himself, he has specific body ticks and behavioral baselines that you will notice the actor, Alexander Leiss, playing Nathan over exaggerating when he emulates Nathan.

However, whenever Nathan is playing an entirely different person, all of his ticks and baselines completely vanish.

It’s almost psychotic. It’s as if Nathan ceases to exist, and he is now this new person. The Fielder method is terrifying. Terrifying more specifically in how good Nathan is at it.

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