The scathing review by Richard Brody in The New Yorker titled "The Cruel and Arrogant Gaze Nathan Fielder's the Rehearsal" has a lot of legitimate points: it calls Fielder's gaze on his subjects "arrogant, cruel, and above all, indifferent", says the "driving force" of the show are its "vanity and ambition" and ends with "he looks the Look (the stare in which those with power look at their subjects) at the people he films, but doesn't seem to see them". I agree that there is something off-putting about Fielder's approach. Still, there was a number of times I guffawed watching this show and it is funny most of the time, but an unpleasant aftertaste stayed with me.