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The Screen Explorers analyze the HBO show "The Rehearsal" and discuss its complex methods and themes. They question the effectiveness of Nathan Fielder's role as both producer and character, and whether the show loses its original meaning. They also discuss Angela's role in the experiment, Nathan's manipulation tactics, and the confusion it creates for the audience. They debate whether Nathan should have stayed as a producer or become solely a character. The group rates the show and expresses their interest in a potential second season. Hello, film and TV fanatics. We are the Screen Explorers, where we analyze rhetorics in popular films and TV shows ongoing in pop culture. My name is Jared. My name is Sangbrun. And my name is Ashwin. We hope everyone is having an excellent day. How are you guys? Oh, I'm Betty Webb. Me as well. Okay, that's good. Today we will be dissecting the critically acclaimed HBO television show, The Rehearsal, directed by Nathan Fielder. Before we begin, there will be spoilers throughout our discussion today. So if someone hasn't seen the show, don't say that we didn't warn you. The Rehearsal is an experiment aimed at preparing individuals for situations, mainly directed towards social conversations. However, the HBO show is executed in a few complex methods, including breaking the mold of the way documentary is traditionally noted. For example, there are numerous sections of The Rehearsal where the viewer is unable to identify the difference between a simulation and a real life. Fielder focuses on the perspective of three characters mainly. In episode one, Fielder focuses on the life of Horse Thiet, a Brooklyn teacher who enjoys spending his time and deuce with trivia. In the remaining episodes, Fielder focuses on Angela, a massage therapist who desires to experience parenthood, and Fielder himself. Fielder plays the role of both the producer and a character within the show, interchanging between the two in the latter half of the season. As one progresses throughout the episodes, it increases in its level of chaos and dysfunction. Nathan's careless nature of playing both producer and a character causes The Rehearsal to lose its original meaning, being an experiment solely to prepare individuals for social situations, as Fielder gets lost in narration, ultimately leaving the audience behind in the process. Instead of playing both producer and character, Nathan should have stayed as a producer or given up the producer role and joined as a character to prevent the loss of its meaning of preparing individuals for social situations, and the loss of Nathan Fielder himself as a person. As The Rehearsal begins, we are immediately met with Cora and Nathan. Both characters are extremely awkward, clamoring their hands to their sides, stuttering midway through sentences, and engaging in forced laughter. As a listener, I thought this was weird. I was uncomfortable throughout some of it, but that's the purpose of the show. Here Nathan is characterized as a nerdy, socially awkward individual, but as the series progresses, his personality does a complete 180 and one does not know what to believe. About three minutes within the show, Nathan reveals his claim for the show. His claim is if you plan for every variable, a happy outcome does not have to be left up to chance. And when you reveal your true self, people don't always like what they see. But I wanted to show him that if you plan for every variable, a happy outcome doesn't have to be left to chance. Fielder's introduction as a producer to the audience showcases him as an individual who is solely there to help people solve critical issues, which establishes his credibility. However, an issue comes if this does not come to fruition, which throughout the rehearsal we can see that this isn't the case. A few questions that I got throughout watching the rehearsal were, if it's impossible to achieve perfection, why try to achieve a happy outcome through rehearsing? And then also, is Nathan's experiment obsolete? What do you guys think? Yeah, I definitely think that Nathan's experiment was obsolete because as the show progresses, you see Nathan falling into his own pit of doing the rehearsal on himself again and again. And every time he realizes he made a mistake, he tries to fix it with another rehearsal, which in my opinion, shouldn't be done. He should rather just try and fix it another way. And we also see that in the last few seconds of the last episode, we see that Nathan finally realizes the error of his ways. I agree with you, Ashwin. Yeah, I agree also. Throughout the reversal, Nathan utilized multiple methods of manipulation as a producer. For example, within the fifth episode, he weaponized religion within the child actors. Also, in the fourth episode, he utilized 24-7 cameras that watched Angela even when she wasn't aware that the experiment was ongoing, using HBO production in the process. There is a major disconnect between him as a character and him as a producer, which could be done purposely, possibly exposing the dangers of the television industry. Because once Angela begins to disagree with him, she is given a bad edit almost immediately. And then we can see this through Hathos, where the camera angle points to Nathan while she's explaining her ideas, almost synthesizing with him. And then sad music is also playing in the background throughout this process. And then Buehler, as a character, is painting her as unrealistic. Here's a clip of Angela calling Nathan a liar, exposing his manipulation tactics. Nathan has a problem with lying. He lies a lot. After doing extensive research on the rehearsal, I discovered an article from Vice questioning the legitimacy of the actors, saying the actors were hired, or Nathan knew the actors before beginning the rehearsal, calling into question the legitimacy of the show, and was it even real? Nathan as a character as real as he's presenting himself to be. Like I wonder what's real about Nathan, what is the real version of himself in the show? Nathan's character sheds some very muddy waters as he climbs the two roles of a character and a producer, however he becomes a character whenever he is directly on camera. Nathan as a character has some interesting interactions with other characters. For example, near the end of the second episode, Robin leads a project leaving Angela alone again. Therefore, Nathan joins Angela's parenthood experience. And we wonder, did he join to help Angela, or because he wanted parenting experience as well? Personally, I think in the beginning of the experiment, I think he did want to help Angela. But after Robin left, I feel like he only was doing the experiment for his own personal benefit as he just wanted parenting experience since he hasn't gotten to experience that. As you can tell, when he's having a conversation with Angela, his mood changes, his tone is different. Yeah, I agree with you, and I think that he switches up whenever something could possibly benefit him throughout the show. But I think that not everything would benefit him anyways, because as we see, he has gone through many fails throughout the show. For example, in episode three, Nathan has trouble balancing the role as a producer and as a character of Adam's father. And because of that, he misses out on the parenting experience because of Patrick's rehearsal, which is about Patrick's and his brother's dispute regarding their grandfather's will. Also, in episode four, Nathan decides to revert back to Adam's early years, which was solely for Nathan's experience. And we see that Nathan becomes more involved as a producer, and he becomes more focused on shifting the project from Angela to him. And I'm curious, what do you guys think? Do you think Angela liked this idea or not? I definitely don't think Angela liked the idea, because this was her project, and now it's becoming more focused on Nathan's parenting experience. Yeah, I agree. As one watches back the episodes, you can see Angela's mood changes from more upbeat and charismatic to being more critical and more agitated with the whole experiment. So clearly, she did not like the idea of Nathan being more involved in the experiment. Yeah, and then we see that Angela quits the project. Nathan decides to raise Adam anon. Again, we see the show that the goal of the rehearsal shifts from Nathan's parenting experience to rehearsing to prevent bonds with the child actors from happening. On the other hand, I think there were some successes. For example, the religious conflict between they and Angela. For Adam, it's something that Angela could actually experience if Angela marries someone with a different religious belief than hers, but in a different perspective. If Angela actually marries someone who has a different belief than hers because she's very Christian, and therefore, wouldn't it be better for Nathan, who is portraying as Angela's future husband, to act as a person with the same religion as Angela? And since the goal was to provide parenting experience for Angela, Nathan as a character, I think, should have been more considered and developed. An outside source from Wilkinson from Vox states that Nathan spends almost all of the rehearsals flopping around trying to feel and experience the world in a real way. He wants to understand how people feel emotion generally, and more specifically, what makes certain people tick. Angela Thomas Patrick Remy I agree with this statement. I think Nathan is being involved in the rehearsing of the character because she wants to feel emotions, and because of his involvement, I feel like the original goal of the rehearsal is being lost. Is Nathan more effective as a producer on the rehearsal, or should he have stayed a character and had someone else produce the show in order for the show to progress and not lose its original meaning? What do you guys think? I think he should have stayed as a producer, because as a producer and a character, she has too much power. He's just doing whatever he wants now. Yeah, I agree with what you said about him having too much power as a character and a producer, but I think that he would have been better off as a character after he joined the rehearsal in the second episode, because he himself wanted to experience what being a parent feels like, and I feel that he would have been better off if he just appointed someone else to be the producer, and have him follow his own ways for the rehearsal. If he did do this, he wouldn't have missed out on Adam's childhood, and he wouldn't have reverted his age back to six years, and like we spoke earlier, Angela might not have quit the project in the end, and the rehearsal might have been a success for both Nathan and Angela. Both of you have very interesting perspectives. This question is very important because Fuser loses the audience throughout the rehearsal. His chaos and dysfunction increases as the series progresses. I know that as an audience member, I got confused multiple times within the plot of this story. As one minute, we see Nathan rehearsing scenes with a fake Angela, and then the next scene, you see him discussing religion with his parents. This is extremely confusing for the viewers to process, and he should have either played the role as a producer or a character, but not both. In my personal opinion, I think he should have stayed as a producer as it best allowed for the experiment to fully play out. As we are wrapping up, overall, since our podcast is dedicated to TV shows and films, what is your overall rating out of 10 on this season, and how likely are you to watch the second season of the rehearsal? Honestly, I would give it an 8 out of 10 because, as you said, the show leaves the audience behind, and I would really love to see the second season because I want to know if Nathan actually realizes his mistake or not. I'll give it a 5 out of 10 because I think it was very unethical and I felt disturbed by it. Then for me, I would give the rehearsal a 6 out of 10. I felt like at times it was very awkward and uncomfortable to watch, and then other times it was interesting and engaging for me to watch it. I don't know if I would watch the second season, but we'll see. Hopefully it's good. If any of our listeners have not watched the show, it's only 6 episodes about 30 minutes in length for each episode, and we highly recommend it despite our own personal opinions. Thank you to all of our listeners for spending a little bit of your day with us. I'm Jared. I'm Ashwin. I'm Sandram. Tune in next time into The Street Explorers. Thanks for listening.
