Imagine you own a small taxi service that is losing business due to the rise of Uber, and you wish you had the power to do anything to the large corporation to slow them down. What if a business expert came in with an actual plan to slow their expansion down? Would you be all in? What if the plan was to form a sleeper cell of rogue taxi drivers that pose as normal Uber drivers, but when the time is right, they all become horrible Uber nightmares for their passengers in order to discredit Uber as a company? Would you still be all in? If you’re a guest on the show Nathan For You, you would be. Nathan For You started a decade ago, but still holds up as one of the funniest reality shows that has aired on television. The creator Nathan Fielder is a business major, and he uses his knowledge to concoct absurd ideas that could help small businesses get ahead. The business owners in the episodes always agree to at least try it. The most absurd thing, is that every bit of it is real. The people are real people, and the customers are real customers. Nathan is the only one playing a part, only a slightly exaggerated version of himself, but technically not himself. The comedy comes straight out of the honest reactions and crazy ideas featured in each episode, such as the one mentioned above.
I really like Nathan For You, but one problem I have with the show, is the fact that he is potentially ruining these small businesses’ reputations, by misleading them with his promise of help, and surprising them with his stupid antics. It makes for an entertaining show, but I don’t think that it is a positive thing for the small businesses that he features. Every business owner on the show agrees to the plan he comes up with, or to at least try it, but they don’t realize the extent he might take the plan to. They also might feel a little forced to follow through with his plans, since he is there in your business already, sticking cameras in your face. But, these people do agree to try his ideas, so it isn’t black and white, good or bad. The show has a ton of laugh out loud moments, and some schemes that are so strange or wrong that it does seem scripted. Many of the episodes don’t even focus on small businesses, but have Nathan Fielder go on little tangents for an episode, that revolve around some aspect of his life, or a guest’s life. For example, the final episode of the series focuses on a guest from a prior episode, who had mentioned to Nathan that he has a lost lover, that grew apart with him. “The one that got away.” They spend a special length episode, almost an hour and a half, trying to find her. Episodes like this have no negative effects on the guest, yet I think they’re some of the most compelling of the series. I understand that Nathan could have a point to this however, revealing the uncomfortable underbelly of the business world, and criticizing the shady business tactics employed by some businesses. But these are Nathan’s ideas, not any of his guest’s, so it is morally ambiguous.
Towards the end of the series, Nathan actually does start using Nathan For You in order to make actual good changes in the world. For example, in season 3, Fielder starts a non-profit apparel company called Summit Ice, that gives all of its profits to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, in Canada. Nathan is Jewish, and from Canada, so it makes sense that he would want to support such a cause. Although started in an episode of Nathan For You, the apparel brand is still alive today. Summit Ice doesn’t make its profits public, save for their first year, in which they actually raised 300,000 dollars for the Holocaust Education Centre. Acts of good like this, among others towards the end of the show, indicate a change in Nathan’s mindset on the series. He seemed to no longer want to be in the business of fucking with small businesses. Nathan For You ended with its fourth season, and was very entertaining all the way through. But after that series ended on Comedy Central, Fielder’s career got exponentially more interesting.
In 2017, after Nathan For You ended, his career seemed to enter a lull from the major public spotlight. He produced for shows like How To With John Wilson, on HBO, but he stayed behind the camera for a while. No longer was he the lead in his own series. Personally, I think he chose this time to reflect on his first project, and the experience he gained from it. He thought about the things that made it successful, as well as the faults it had. In 2022, 5 years later, he finally headed his sophomore show with a major upgrade: It was now home to HBO. HBO’s The Rehearsal was created by and stars Nathan Fielder. It is another reality show, except this time, Nathan chose to focus the show on everyday individuals. The premise of the series is that he finds people that are anticipating major changes, decisions, or actions in their life, but are too scared to pull the trigger. Nathan helps them rehearse every possible outcome of the situation, in excruciating detail, in order to help them get over their fear and push through.
That, on paper, is the concept. But just like Nathan For You, not every episode centers around that, and as the six episodes go on, that concept is featured less and less, and he focuses more and more on the basic concept, of “what if I said that differently?”, or “what if I turned right instead of left?”. He goes further and further down the rabbit hole, exploring himself more as the series goes on, rather than anyone else. It is pretty fascinating. This show feels unreal at many times, because it is so strange, and so awkward. Nathan Fielder’s style of reality TV is taking an eye catching concept, but shredding it down and blending it with his surreal mind. Nathan made this feel like an unnerving dream at points, due to its seemingly directionless storyline, that seems to get either weirder or into more hot water as the episodes go on.
Nathan explores the faults of The Rehearsal in the episodes themselves, instead of not mentioning the negative effects, like in Nathan For You. One kid on the show is a child actor who plays Nathan’s son in one of the rehearsals, but due to his young age, and the lack of a real father at home, the child believes Nathan is his actual father by the end of the experiment, and Nathan struggles with the real life effect this has on the kid, having his father ripped away for the second time in his life. Nathan openly spotlights this in his show, instead of letting the problem linger in your subconscious, such as he did in his prior show. This series is fascinating for many reasons, but mostly because it delves deeper into the mind of Nathan Fielder, an awkward, thoughtful, and hilarious filmmaker. His narration throughout the show gets more introspective, and leaves you pondering bigger questions about your own life, revolving around the butterfly effect concept.
The Curse is Nathan Fielder’s latest show, which was co created by him and Benny Safdie. Prior to this show, Safdie co-directed movies with his brother, such as Uncut Gems with Adam Sandler. It began airing on Showtime, HBO’s biggest competitor, in 2023. This show is very meta, a scripted series that focuses on a couple who is making their own reality series for HGTV, contrasting the real complex versions of them with the goody-two-shoes version of themselves they present on television. Because of Nathan’s experience in reality TV, he very accurately criticizes and satirizes the docuseries genre, and Benny Safdie’s experience in telling a compelling flawed-character driven story helps him translate Nathan’s experience into a really entertaining show. It is wonderfully uncomfortable to watch.
The main characters live in a very morally grey area. They love to push your uncomfortable meter to the max. I loved the main characters, played by Fielder, Safdie, and Emma Stone. They do a great job making you wonder who’s in the right, and who is actually being genuine. I think this show is Fielder’s best work to date, and considering it has notable backers, such as Showtime and A24, Hollywood thinks so too. The ending of the series left me very sad, and actually very mad. Not at the showrunners though! I was pissed at the characters! I don’t recall another show making me feel so helpless, and uncomfortably exasperated by the end of season, yet, it worked! I loved the show for challenging me like that! The Curse isn’t a horror series, but in a way, it lays in this weird uncanny area, where you’re just slightly unsettled and constantly on the edge of your seat, despite the show mostly consisting of dramatic and comedic elements. This show feels very real to me, despite the fact that it focuses on major actors. I felt like I was watching behind the scenes of an actual reality series for HGTV.
Nathan has a knack for blurring the lines. Whether its real or not, you’re always wondering if it is authentic. I think that is a great talent to have, and while at times it makes us uncomfortable as an audience, maybe that is because it is forcing us to look at something true about ourselves. It’s a good thing to confront uncomfortable realities, because it pushes us to grow as people. But it is always great to laugh while you’re doing it, something Nathan knows very well. Please, if you haven’t already, check out Fielder’s work. Nathan For You streams on Paramount Plus With Showtime (that is the streamers full name now). The Curse is also on Showtime, so you can see it through Paramount Plus, or simply with the Showtime add-on, on sites like Hulu. The Rehearsal can be watched with the HBO add-on of any cable service, or you can stream it on Max. Nathan is such a likeable celebrity, who seems down to Earth and genuinely funny in interviews. He needs more attention, and deserves the support, so go check him out if you need something good to watch! Thanks so much for reading!