Do you hate podcasts? You will after bingeing Nobody Wants This, a passable romcom on Netflix (home of the passable romcom) waylaid by its central thesis: that nattering into an expensive mic with a pal and then sharing your blatherings with the internet is a higher calling. The highest calling, going by this otherwise breezy 10-parter that lands like When Harry Met Sally for self-involved millennials.
Kristen Bell (Frozen, The Good Place) and Adam Brody (The OC) are Joanne and Noah, the “will-they/won’t they” pairing whose relationship ups-and-downs are tracked with expert quirkiness. He’s a cool rabbi – a bit like Andrew Scott’s “hot priest” from Fleabag, minus the Irish accent and with a veneer of LA main character syndrome. Bell’s character meanwhile hosts a relationship podcast along with her sister (Succession’s Justine Lupe, wasted with a peripheral part) and Nobody Wants This is keen for us to know that their show – with its regular updates about Joanne’s love woes – is a mammoth contribution to the wellbeing of humanity. Or, as Noah tells Joanne with a straight face, “What you do is important”.
But is it – really? The other issue bedevilling an essentially zippy and watchable caper is that the leads have negligible chemistry. Showrunner (and former podcaster) Erin Foster loads the script with what would once have been called repartee, and from the moment Joanne turns up at a party at which Noah is a guest, they’re exchanging arch dialogue like old pros.
But the back-and-forths are strictly surface level, and beyond the banter, you never believe they have much in common. The series also seems to think Noah is heroic for ditching his last girlfriend because of her supposed neediness. She finds the engagement ring he had locked away until the perfect moment to pop the question, and her eagerness to just push on with things and tie the knot is seen as a huge character flaw.
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Bell’s last big streaming hit, The Good Place, was a fun romp set in the afterlife and owed a lot to her lightly-worn charm and talent for screwball comic. She is just as likable in Nobody Wants This but has a tough task getting anywhere with Brody, a black hole of anti-charm. With his hipster beard and laconic take on religion, it’s hard to take him seriously as a rabbi. But it’s even harder to believe in Noah and Joanne as a star-crossed couple, and that’s a huge flaw for a romcom full of zinging gags but lacking a heart.
