Kristen Bell and Adam Brody Lead a Shallow Romance in Netflix’s Weightless ‘Nobody Wants This’: TV Review

variety.com:

Alison Herman TV Critic A disclosure: I’m not sure how much critical distance I can have from the Netflix comedy “Nobody Wants This,” since the entire show seems to have been filmed within five miles of my house.

The feather-light romance, starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody as an oversharing podcaster and the sensitive rabbi who sweeps her off her feet, was inspired by the life of creator Erin Foster, former star of “Barely Famous” and current co-host of “The World’s First Podcast” with her sister Sara.

But it’s also a throwback to a TV micro-trend that peaked about a decade ago: low-stakes series that chronicle the emotional and romantic lives of self-involved “creative” types in a small handful of neighborhoods in the northeast corner of Los Angeles. (The mere presence of Bell and Brody evokes millennial touchstones like “Gossip Girl” and “The O.C.,” though those parallels are more superficial than stylistic.) Yet “Nobody Wants This” is to “Transparent,” “You’re the Worst” and their ilk what the so-called “indie sleaze” revival is to The Strokes and LCD Soundsystem: a faint echo that’s content to echo the aesthetics of its influence without much in the way of substance. (Bring in the heavyweights of TV-as-extended-rom-com, like “Catastrophe” and “Fleabag,” and the comparison is even more unflattering.) I suspect this will be more of a boon than an impediment to its success.

Netflix has made megahits of shows as shiny and frictionless as “Nobody Wants This” in the past; after downing 10 episodes in two sittings, I entered a thought-free state of mind I’ve come to think of as “Emily in Paris” Syndrome.