by ·Comments Off on The Rehearsal season 2 (2025)

“They gave me a blank check as long as I don’t go over budget.” The aviation safety season – Nathan discovers a problem that only he can solve, bringing some Nathan For You energy into The Rehearsal. He thinks social difficulties between copilots prevents them from speaking up when they see something wrong, and aims to solve this by having pilots role-play during flights. Along the way he starts a game show inside the fake airport he built, then the fake crew of his fake singing competition start covertly giving fake therapy to the real pilots. “I’ve always felt that sincerity was overrated.” He goes to Colorado with a couple of cloned dogs, rehearses one dog to live the life of his original (has Fielder read The Boys From Brazil?) then Nathan speed-runs episodes from Captain Sully’s life to understand his mind (always claiming he wants to help others then turning back on himself). “I began studying footage of other comedians who went before congress” – he shows a fake senate his pilot dating reenactments, but not even HBO’s lobbyists and the help of an autism center (who all but directly state that Nathan is obviously autistic) can get him into the real senate, so he has to become a licensed pilot himself and fly a planeload of people safely around in a circle. I’m not sure what any of this proves, but every episode succeeded in being more bonkers than the last.

by ·Comments Off on TV watched mid-2022

The Rehearsal season 1 (2022)

1. Synecdoche For You, with a trivia buff worried about a fib he’s told.
“Sometimes you don’t want to say anything, but you do want people to know you exist.”

2. Angela raising a child, Robin as short-lived father-figure.
3. Gold-digger girlfriend and fake grandpa with secret gold. “Maybe for some the rehearsal itself is enough.”
4. Fielder Method school spirals into itself, featuring closing credits for “fake roommates” and “fake fake roommates.”
5. Focus on famiily life, clashing with Angela’s christianity. “It turns out winter is very expensive to maintain.”
6. Trying to un-brainwash the six year-olds, and imagining how the rehearsals could have been improved.
“I was starting to feel like I was just solving a puzzle of my own design.”

A show we’re gonna think about for a long time. Nathan likes to live in tricky ethical territory. The cowriters also worked on Silicon Valley and the On Cinema universe.

Alissa Wilkinson’s article is the one to read.
Update: so is Vikram Murthi’s.

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How To with John Wilson season 2 (2022)

1. John’s landlady is moving, offers to sell him the house. He looks at other properties, talks with finance people, discusses the horror of being a landlord, sidetracks into Second Life, then rides the ferry to think, and goes home with a rich ventriloquist.
2. appreciating wine (and energy drinks)
3. finding a parking spot, getting struck by lightning, resting in peace
4. recycling batteries / cannibal patch kids and nazi flags and sex offenders
5. dreams / entrepeneur whose product idea came in a dream / targeted ads / facts (1010 Wins) vs. fantasy (Avatar)
6. being spontaneous but learning that being apparently-spontaneous requires a lot of work… wandering through Las Vegas looking for his landlady and ending up in a convention-convention, where people make plans to make plans

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Kids in the Hall season 6 (2022)

This was an actual dream come true.

1. Brain Candy board room / unearthing / fully clothed bank robbers / cathy and cathy sending earth’s final fax / a tart is called a pie / 60-year-old strippers
2. racing an easy chair / delivery doctor drop average / sentient gloryhole / cheating imaginary girlfriend / zoom masturbation
3. postapocalypse morning DJ “remain indoors” / ambumblance / DJ getting robocalls / Shakespeare is resurrected, “get thee to the fucking metro” / gut spigot drains fat away / clown shoes are cultural appropriation / DJ
4. superdrunk / hotel women too weak to get off couch / superdrunk / pawn shop, Kevin tricks Dave into appearing in a Kevin sketch / superdrunk vs. crusher / neighborhood patrol of guys who kinda know things are off somehow

5. Gender reveal is boy with head of a mouse / a little old to be playing a kid / oversexed 1970’s Italians hire sex therapist / lonely guy gets serial killer cats / Italians / couple fights after husband impulse-buys a new house / Italians / hitman with invisible weapons eliminates toilet humor
6. toxic network boss / hateful baby / son films aged dad carrying mom over threshold / avant-garde “friends of mark” / aged dad / police marching techniques / summoning the banana demon / network boss is in a pickle
7. taddli on smoking / naked tenant wants his bathwater hot-hot / taddli on recycling / the eradicator plays squash (“I’ll snap YOU for the ‘gram”) / taddli confronts the writers room / gay couples threatened by interest in women
8. he’s not crazy he just lost his glasses / employees must wash hair before pooping / husband is embarrassed on his own lawn / whenever men with extravagant mustaches meet in the park one commits a murder / studying gen-z viewing habits and writing a cliffhanger about writing a cliffhanger

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I gave up on Norm Macdonald: Nothing Special after 15 minutes. RIP Dallas and Norm. Watched a whole Amy Schumer-presented standup thing with Ron Funches, Jaye McBride, Christina P, Rachel Feinstein, Chris Distefano, Lil Rel Howery. Watched a whole hour by some guy just the other day… it was free on Prime… what was that guy’s name? Did I cover the David Cross special last time? When did that come out?

Still in the middle of Mind Over Murder (hi Katy), Irma Vep, The Last Movie Stars (hi Katy), Underground Railroad (long-delayed), and Only Murders in the Building (season ONE, no spoilers).