Holy crap - he landed a plane!
Also: News on the future of Always Be Watching
A good decade or so ago I was sitting on my couch deep into a binge rewatch of the action-adventure show 24. Midway through a season six storyline, Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) hijacks a commercial aeroplane and then, in the next episode, has to land the damn thing.
When he did it, I jumped to my feet and cheered.
It was the greatest thing I had seen in the show 24 and one of the most fun things I have ever seen on television. I haven’t gone back to rewatch that episode. Was it actually great? Or was I just in the mood?
Either way, that moment dances in my mind this morning as I consider what Nathan Fielder did yesterday in the second season finale of The Rehearsal.
After a season of staging various stunts to explore the idea of why plane crashes happen, Fielder revealed that for the past few years he has been getting his flight hours up and learning to fly planes himself - leading to the ‘comedian’ (is he a comedian or concept artist? Should one even made the distinction?) flying a 737 with actors/performers/guests from throughout the season joining him on-board.
The scale of this sort of TV stunt is phenomenal. I don’t know that The Rehearsal is the funniest show of 2025, but it is 100% the most creative and audacious series I’ve seen in years.
TV Insider has a good, breezy recap of the episode. But, if you have seen it and want to go much deeper into thinking about it, I’d recommend reading a text conversation at The New York Times between TV critic James Poniewozik and film critic Alissa Wilkinson.
PONIEWOZIK Whether XYZ “really happened” in “The Rehearsal” is something I can’t know, nor do I especially care — any more than I do in a “based on a true story” series like “Baby Reindeer.”
But the season was about something very real — deadly air disasters and the human dynamics that might contribute to them. I don’t know how aviation experts would judge Fielder’s diagnoses or his methods. (Though he notes that training to fly a passenger jet involves “the ultimate rehearsal,” in an enormous, Fielderian simulator.) But I could not avoid thinking of the show when I read an analysis of January’s fatal midair collision in Washington, D.C., which looked at — among other factors — the communication between the helicopter pilot and co-pilot.
I’m not actually sure that the climactic voyage, though gobsmacking, did more to prove Fielder’s real-world point than the season had already. That’s fine; I do not need Nathan Fielder to end air-travel fatalities in six episodes of TV. What the season did argue, in its strange, hilarious way, was that the human desire to avoid discomfort is narcotically powerful, even dangerous.
Meanwhile, over at Indiewire, Mission: Impossible stunt coordinator Wade Eastwood explains what goes into staging a stunt like this for the screen.
The main answer, therefore, in how “The Rehearsal” got away with packing a real airplane full of real people (even if they are actors) and flying it in the actual sky is that Fielder did the work to be qualified to fly it, that the production found a plane airworthy enough (thankfully, without bird nests), and that the team around Fielder, from his co-pilot to the show’s aviation consultants (two are credited in the episode, Steve Giordano and Robert Allen) to the crew in the chase plane, were experienced enough for HBO’s army of lawyers to agree they had indeed mitigated as much risk as possible.
Uh, some news from me
I have just been announced as the new editor for Australian media trade publication Mediaweek. Some of you may be aware that I have previously worked at Mediaweek as the Deputy Editor back in 2015-16.
You can read the official statement by Mediaweek, complete with an obligatory quote from yours truly at the Mediaweek site.
What does this mean for Always Be Watching?
Nothing much will change. ABW is a very different proposition to MW with different audiences and different content needs.
You’ll likely see a lot more Mediaweek links in the ABW newsletter.
Maybe everything will change. Honestly, I don’t know how much Mediaweek will impact ABW entirely just yet. It may stay the same. There may be more of a straight focus on news links. There may be fewer editions each week, but deeper insights. Maybe none of the above.
Anyway - exciting times and I’m looking forward to it all.
News Desk
One-time angry-man Australian comic Mark Humphries will front a new one-hour documentary for streamer BINGE on how the Australian dream to own one’s own home is out of reach. Read: if
Duck Dynasty patriarch and comb objector Phil Robertson has died, aged 79. Read: NYT
Just a few weeks ago, Netflix enabled programmatic guaranteed buying in Australia for buyers using Google’s Display and Video 360 (DV360) and The Trade Desk. This week it is further supporting its ad-supported product with Netflix viewership now officially reported by OzTAM. Here’s my new pal Natasha Lee in Mediaweek.
Amelia Tait at The Guardian says TV producers have stepped up their game in creating more authentic interpersonal lives for characters with how text messages (and importantly: text message histories) are seen on-screen.
Jason Isaacs regrets stirring gossip through The White Lotus PR tour. Read: Indiewire
That’s the newsletter for today.
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Congrats on the new gig 🎉
Congratulations on the new gig, Dan!