Start with Nathan for You’s “Gas Station/Caricature Artist.” A gas station advertises a deal so good that the real work goes into making customers earn it. The episode takes one ordinary business problem and lets you see exactly how Fielder turns a solution into a social experiment. From there, go to The Rehearsal’s first episode to see the same appetite for planning applied to one conversation between friends.
From Vancouver to CBC
Fielder grew up in Vancouver, then studied comedy at Humber College in Toronto. He made shorts and performed with the Laugh Sabbath collective before becoming a correspondent on CBC’s This Hour Has 22 Minutes. On his “Nathan on Your Side” segments, he borrowed the authority of a consumer reporter and applied it to problems too small to warrant a full investigation. He told NOW Toronto he used those CBC clips to show Comedy Central how he worked with real people. During development, the premise moved from consumer advocacy to advising businesses.
Nathan for You: Follow the premise until it breaks
Fielder and Michael Koman co-created Nathan for You. Fielder plays a business adviser who can follow the logic of a pitch long after everyone else would have abandoned it. In the gas station episode, a spectacular rebate lures drivers into a demanding scavenger hunt. The question shifts from whether a promotion will bring in customers to how much effort somebody will put in for a bargain.
Watch season 2, episode 5, “Dumb Starbucks,” next. The coffee shop Fielder opens makes a gamble on parody and draws attention in its own right. The two episodes make a sharp double bill. One puts fine print between the customer and a deal. The other makes the justification for the shop more memorable than the coffee it is supposed to sell.
When to watch “Finding Frances”
Save the feature-length season 4 finale until you have seen a few regular episodes. Fielder helps a Bill Gates impersonator look for a former love. The usual consulting setup gives way to someone else’s longstanding wish. You start wondering what help would mean for this particular person.
The Rehearsal: Start with a single confession
Fielder writes, directs, stars in and executive-produces The Rehearsal. In the first season’s opener, “Orange Juice, No Pulp,” a trivia player wants to confess a long-kept lie to a teammate. Fielder stages a replica environment and anticipates how the conversation might go. The stakes are clear even as the rehearsal gets elaborate, which is why it makes a better introduction than a clip from later in the season.
Can I start with the aviation season?
Yes. Begin at season 2, episode 1, “Gotta Have Fun.” The six-episode season follows a new experiment built around cockpit communication and safety. Start there if the aviation premise brought you in. The first season is the quicker way to see why a rehearsal can change the thing it is supposed to prepare someone for.
The Curse: Watch the people making the show inside the show
Fielder and Benny Safdie created The Curse, a scripted series. Fielder plays Asher Siegel, Emma Stone plays Whitney, and Safdie plays Dougie, the producer of their planned home-improvement series in Española, New Mexico. Start at “Land of Enchantment,” season 1, episode 1. Whitney and Asher want to make a television show about what they’re building. Dougie wants television that will hold an audience. Pay attention to the distance between the public pitch and the people trying to make it come true. The premiere gives that tension room to build across the season.
How To with John Wilson: Follow the camera down a side street
John Wilson created and narrates the series. Fielder is an executive producer. In season 1, episode 2, “How To Put Up Scaffolding,” Wilson starts with something most New Yorkers walk under without looking at. A title that sounds like an instruction manual becomes a reason to notice who puts those structures there and why they stay. Put it next to a Nathan for You episode. Fielder’s consultant tries to make the world fit his plan. Wilson follows the people and details that pull his footage away from the plan.
You Can See Everything: The person being filmed has a plan, too
Fielder co-directed You Can See Everything with Lance Oppenheim. The A24 documentary began with access to Elizabeth Holmes before she reported to prison in 2023 and opened in US theaters on October 16, 2026. In their New York Film Festival conversation, the directors describe how quickly people in the room could disagree on what they had just witnessed. That makes “Orange Juice, No Pulp” a useful pairing. The HBO episode builds an environment to help someone decide what to say. The film puts its crew in a setting where people already have competing accounts of what is happening.
Start here if you came for the documentary, then use our Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes timeline for the laboratory claims, the verdict and the sentencing record behind it.