Netflix romcom Nobody Wants This ignores its USP

Unfortunately, Adam Brody's too good to be true Noah and Kristen Bell's high-maintenance Joanne have about as much chemistry as two scratch posts. And the interesting central premise – a committed rabbi has to juggle his faith with his growing love for agnostic podcaster – often takes a backseat to far more trivial, and some would say self-involved, matters.

In fact, Nobody Wants This appears to be under the belief that podcasting is a much higher calling, its narrative driven far more by the machinations of Joanne's Call Her Daddy-esque show than Noah's bid to fulfil his lifelong religious aspirations.

Will she and equally catty co-host sister Morgan (Succession's regular scene-stealer Justine Lupe) be able to land a megabucks deal with Spotify? Will her fledgling romance impact on the listenership's craving for gossip about the big city dating scene? The show seems to think we should care.

It also often plays out like an advertorial for podcasts. In one ambiguously parodic dinner table scene, Noah tells Joanne – a woman who, as his overbearing mother Bina (Tovah Feldshuh) points out, makes a living "talking about former lovers for public consumption" – with the utmost earnestness: "What you do is important".

Incidentally, both creator Erin Foster (The World's First Podcast with Erin and Sara Foster) and Bell (We Are Supported By) once had podcasts of their own, while the latter's husband, Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert, is one of the world's biggest.

Of course, Joanne eventually makes Bina see the error of her ways, getting her to open up about a youthful tryst with Frank Sinatra on a mock podcast interview. She also inspires Noah, who after listening to an episode called Dil-dos and Dil-don'ts, miraculously turns into his community's most candid marriage counsellor.

"Sex isn’t the point of the podcast," Joanne insists in another vainglorious speech about the life-changing magnitude of her work. "I want them to feel empowered."

What's interesting is Foster also has experience of converting to Judaism, a practice which both the central relationship and Noah's career prospects ultimately hinge upon.

Yet other than a few throwaway lines, Nobody Wants This doesn't really explore what this means. It takes until the eighth episode for the subject to come up, with Joanne making a decision before then quickly reneging on her word without offering any explanation either way.

Frustratingly, there are flickers of a much more grounded rom-com elsewhere, and one that acknowledges Noah's path is infinitely more intriguing.

The pair's meet-cute at a mutual friends' dinner party, for example, leads to a fascinating conversation about both their spiritual differences and parallels ("Baked into the Jewish experience is wrestling with what God is or isn't, not knowing"). A trip to a Jewish summer camp, during which Noah is treated like a celebrity and Joanne a pariah, provides a welcome change in dynamics. While brief insights into familial pressures (Joanne is routinely dismissed by Noah's ghastly clan) and religious hypocrisy – a sex shop encounter with a church donor providing one of the show's biggest laughs – better utilise the show's premise to comedic effect.

The show also benefits anytime Noah's boss Cohen (Stephen Tobolowsky) pops up to throw a few golden analogies about the state of his potential replacement's love life ("There are a lot of rules that come with this job. There's no pork, no shellfish. But I think I'm looking at a rabbi who has suddenly realised that he likes a nice blonde crab cake").

Ironically, Noah bounces off Cohen far more effectively than he does Joanne, a character whose constant paranoia and abject fickleness routinely makes it difficult to root for the two supposed lovebirds. We first see her sneakily ducking out in the middle of a date after a guy gets too emotional talking about his late grandmother. And she's similarly flighty when Noah awkwardly tries to make a good impression on her own oddball family.

"He has come back from the ick," she tells her podcast listeners, seemingly celebrating the fact she nearly dumped him simply for his taste in flowers. There's little to explain why Noah, as the closing semi-cliffhanger suggests anyway, is about to sacrifice his selfless career for someone so inherently self-serving.

Nobody Wants This also wastes time on a bizarre will they/won't they between Morgan and Noah's obnoxious married brother Sasha (Timothy Simons) and the latter's equally fruitless attempts to take over the family business.

Meanwhile, the unconventional relationship between Joanne's hippy-dippy mother Lynn (Stephanie Faracy) and newly-out father Henry (Michael Hitchcock) feels like an early broader draft of Grace and Frankie.

Still, Nobody Wants This is unlikely to need any divine intervention to become a hit. After all, we’re in an age where Emily in Paris has been renewed for a fifth season and Anyone But You grossed $200 million at the box office.

Despite such a talented cast and intriguing concept, however, it’s ultimately left wanting.

Nobody Wants This is streaming now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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