Nathan Fiedler in spat with government over ‘The Rehearsal’ season two: “They’re dumb”

Spoilers ahead for ‘The Rehearsal’ season two.

Nathan Fielder is in a spat with a U.S. federal government agency over The Rehearsal season two.

• READ MORE: Here’s what we know about ‘The Rehearsal’ season two

The HBO show sees Fielder help real people prepare for major moments in their lives by constructing entire rooms, houses and other settings in order to simulate every possible outcome.

In the second season, the comedian aims to stop plane crashes before they happen by introducing improved communication between pilots and co-pilots. Fielder theorises that issues stem from co-pilots not speaking up when a superior officer makes a decision they do not agree with.

To test his theory, Fielder became a certified 737 pilot and attempted to get his message to the federal government which, as it turns out, didn’t take it very well.

During an appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown, Brown told Fielder that the Federal Aviation Administration said that it “mandates all airline pilots and crew members to complete interpersonal communication training,” and that it “isn’t seeing the data that supports the show’s central claim, that pilot communications is to blame for airline disaster.”

Fielder responded, “That’s dumb. They’re dumb.”

“I trained to be a pilot, and I’m a 737 pilot. I went through the training. The training is, someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying, if you are a co-pilot and the captain does something wrong, you need to speak up about it,” Fielder continued.

“That’s all. That’s the training. And they talk about some crashes that happened, but they don’t do anything that makes it stick emotionally.” You can watch the full exchange below.

The reviews for The Rehearsal have been universally positive, with the new season sitting on a 100 per cent fresh rating on the reviews aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes at time of writing.

In a A-grade review, Indiewire noted that the season had convinced them that “it’s an earnest effort to improve people’s lives”, describing it as “a sidesplitting comedy and a moving emotional odyssey for Nathan” and “a cut above the vast majority of television”.

The show made headlines when an episode saw Fielder comparing streamer Paramount+ to Nazi Germany, after discovering that an episode of his previous show – Nathan For You – had been scrubbed from the platform.

Viewers in the UK are able to stream the show on Amazon Prime Video, where season one is also currently available.

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