This was brilliant.
And - allow me to clarify - while absolutely brilliant it was not an easy watch, and I was frequently tempted to abandon it. Billed as a comedy, and for sure, it has it's moments, it's more a meta-upon-meta scaffolding which builds a Tower of Babel upon notions of Identity, the choices we make, the people we meet and how we all - one way or another - intrude our reality upon other peoples lives.
There's a lot more than that I'm sure.
Spoilers ahead, so if you're not sure you're going to watch it don't follow the page break:
Season 1, a few small spinoff "Rehearsals" - but the primary theme is that of allowing a woman who may want to have a child and start a family to "rehearse" via a series of child actors that will be perpetually swapped out and allowing the child to age so that she can have the experience of raising a child from birth to adulthood over a few short weeks.
Of course, things don't go according to plan, her intended "romantic" partner (who she has no intent of sleeping with unless they get married) bails on spending the night with the crying child, Nathan steps in to co-parent with her.
The scene of the garden's growth being accelerated, the crew working by night to stick cucumbers and watermelons in the ground...
Or the adult actor playing a 6 year old child out on the lawn, clearly looking into the distance and questioning his life choices, smoking a cigarette...
Or the Nathan Fielder school of acting, wherein he takes over the role of one of his students to uncover his discomfort in his method...
And his returning, to find his actor child all-grown-up, and rehearsing the various scenarios that might ensue...
Moments of unparalleled comedic genius, but - unless you do the work and the work is watching the series, there is no payoff...
Things grow progressively more absurd. Absolutely brilliant, a fucking masterpiece, frequently seriously uncomfortable to watch...
And, LOL as it is, you're never laughing.
Season 2, more or less about the lack of communication in commercial aviation. and - season 2 episode 3, where Nathan relives the life of Chesley B. Sullenberger III, and takes highlights from his autobiography, dresses himself as a baby to relive his life with giant puppets playing his mommy and daddy, and going forward from that...
Fucking bloody hell.
So - overall, a work of genius, but no easy chore to watch. It does have it's rewards though...