Nobody Wants This Review

Joanne (Kristen Bell) turns her disastrous love life into a podcast with her sister Morgan (Justine Lupe); Noah (Adam Brody) is a rabbi who has just broken up with the woman everyone expected him to marry and hopes to become head rabbi of his synagogue. They meet at a party, and the question is not whether they like each other but whether a man whose life is his faith can build one with someone who does not share it. Erin Foster drew it loosely from her own life, with Steven Levitan producing for 20th Television.

Brody is the show. His Noah is relaxed, funny and sure of himself, a romantic lead who listens, and his scenes with Timothy Simons as his brother Sasha are the funniest in it. Bell is good at Joanne's panic. The weak spot is the Jewish women around Noah, his mother and sister-in-law above all, who exist mostly as obstacles; Glamour's Jessica Radloff called them controlling and marriage-hungry, and she had a point.

The second season, under new showrunners Jenni Konner and Bruce Eric Kaplan, adds Seth Rogen and Leighton Meester but loses some of that ease; its Rotten Tomatoes score fell from 95 to 79 percent. The first season earned Emmy nominations for comedy series and for both leads.