The Rehearsal season 2 — deadpan trickster Nathan Fielder is finally dead serious. Or is he?

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For the past few years, the comedian Nathan Fielder has been studying commercial aviation disasters; diligently compiling evidence to support his theory that human miscommunication is the primary cause of airline crashes.

If that doesn’t sound particularly funny, it’s because the habitually deadpan Fielder is, for once, actually dead serious — he is advocating for cockpit communication training. The trouble is that the Federal Aviation Administration has little interest in the counsel of a man who himself admits: “Every public opportunity I’ve had in my life to convey sincerity I instead turned into a joke”.

Undeterred, Fielder has decided to devote the second season of The Rehearsal — an acclaimed, absurd docu-comedy founded on the premise that life’s challenges can be resolved through elaborate role-plays — to unpicking the complex captain and co-pilot dynamic. The result is an inexhaustibly ambitious, imaginative and introspective series that rethinks TV comedy while trying to revolutionise the aviation industry.

We begin with a scene from inside a cockpit. A young pilot notices that something is wrong but fails to impress his concerns on his superior. The aircraft plummets and crashes. Outside the window, engulfed by flames, Fielder takes notes with his familiar vacant stare.

It’s an inspired sight-gag but the findings from his simulations are no laughing matter. In recreating multiple real-life crashes using actors and real-life transcriptions, Fielder has identified a pattern of co-pilots being ignored, spoken over and, in some cases, actively belittled both during the flight and mid-catastrophe.

How then, to get junior pilots to be more assertive and senior ones to be more receptive? How to foster trust between two strangers in a high-stakes situation? Case studies can only reveal so much. Solutions require thinking outside the black box.

Over six episodes, Fielder builds a full-scale airport terminal, sets up a pilot-judged singing contest and re-enacts the entire life of aviation hero Chesley Sullenberger in search of answers. (Incidentally, the bizarre biographical sequence — in which a diapered Fielder is nursed by a giant doll — ends up offering a more penetrating character study than Clint Eastwood’s Sully ever did).

At the heart of these outlandish and often howlingly funny stunts is a genuine effort to understand and find ways of alleviating the pressures pilots face every day. For all the surreal and self-referential components — there’s an interesting digression about how The Rehearsal’s first season resonated with neurodivergent viewers — the series effectively spotlights some alarming flaws in an industry where opening up about mental health or challenging a superior is still taboo.

Even so, we’re often left wondering where Fielder’s earnestness ends and his comedic sensibilities begin. The Rehearsal revels in the doubt and gives few assurances — this is, after all, a show driven by the idea that life is a performance. Yet there are real pilots, a real accident investigation expert, a real congressman — not to mention a real flight in a stunning, unexpectedly stirring finale which not only ties up the season’s story but provides the perfect climax to Fielder’s series-long self-interrogation.

The show might open with his insecurities about not being taken seriously but it grows into a meditation on whether he’s able to see himself as anything other than the clownish persona he’s created. Maybe I’m the fool, but he seems sincere to me.

★★★★★

On HBO and Max from May 25 in the US and on Sky Comedy and NOW in the UK from May 26 at 10pm