#docu-comedy

[rickchung]

Paul T. Goldman (prod. Jason Woliner).

Peacock’s very strange six-episode docu-comedy series hybrid blends true crime narrative adaptations with documentary and reality television filmmaking conventions for an uneasy but highly original take on a surreal life. 

What we’re watching is ostensibly the filming of the eponymous main character’s own life story starring the man himself while breaking the fourth wall with actors commenting on the project they are making with the actual producers and director commenting as themselves. It’s a strange meta-narrative that presents clear moral quandaries.

[rickchung]

The Rehearsal (prod. Nathan Fielder).

The Nathan for You co-creator continues to stretch the limits of his surreal comic vision in blurring the line of the familiar reality TV or docuseries format while leaving audiences to question how “real” what we are watching really is. Revolving around the digestible yet absurd social experiment premise of being able to “rehearse” important but possibly anxiety-inducing moments in your life as a sort of twisted trial run of reality, Fielder’s bread-and-butter continues to be his extremely cringey yet shockingly honest interactions with regular people exasperated by his genuinely awkward sense of sincere earnestness.