Please Watch These Shows Instead of “Nobody Wants This”
Everyone is talking about “Nobody Wants This,” a lazy show about two people who shouldn’t be together. There are so many better options about iconic duos, from “Catastrophe” to “Platonic” to “Hacks.”
Over the past few weeks, at least five friends have texted me to tell me they are watching the new season of Netflix’s #1 smash hit, “Nobody Wants This.” While I am always thrilled to talk to anyone about TV shows, as I wrote when the first season came out, I was hugely anticipating this show starring my Ideal Man Adam Brody, but it disappointed me. The portrayals of Jewish people and Jewish women in particular felt stereotypical and shallow, and the show’s storyline felt half-baked.
I wanted to check out the second season to see if it had improved some of these issues. I will say it did better with the portrayal of Jewish women, particularly rounding out the character of Esther and giving her a bigger role. But if a show is centered around a couple, then we need to be rooting for that couple. That, for me, is the central problem of “Nobody Wants This,” which is that even outside of the issue of Joanne (Kristen Bell) not being Jewish, she and Noah (Adam Brody) just aren’t compatible. I suppose the writers had to keep the conflict going, an issue that sometimes comes up when shows that should be a limited series try to come up with plotlines for additional seasons.
If you watched “Nobody Wants This,” or are thinking about it, perhaps pick one of these superior comedic options about iconic duos, both romantic and nonromantic, below:
“Catastrophe” (Prime) (2015-2019)
This is one of my all-time favorite shows, written by and starring the brilliant and hilarious Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan. In this series, an unlikely overseas couple decide to make it work when they get pregnant. It is hilarious and heartwarming. Like Joanne in “Nobody Wants This,” Sharon’s character (also named Sharon in the show) is prickly and moody, while Rob’s is more upbeat. But the dialogue is so good I forgive the characters their faults, and also believe they really should be together, unlike Noah and Joanne. Also, this was Carrie Fisher’s last role before she passed away. She plays Rob’s mom with characteristic sass and aplomb.
“Platonic” (Apple TV) (2023-present)
I am currently rewatching this show about another unlikely duo: Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne playing best friends. While I was initially unsure whether delicate, beautiful Rose Byrne could pull off a buddy comedy, she consistently is willing to go for it and embarrass herself as the two embark in cringey, ridiculous antics that always go too far. This show exceeded my expectations with its humor, wit, and ultimate good naturedness. Though Seth Rogen does yell and swear a lot. I love how “Platonic” shows us that a man and a woman can be friends after all, and theirs is totally believable.
“Hacks” (HBO Max) (2021-present)
This is a show about a nonromantic duo – Ava, a disaffected Gen Z disgraced TV writer, and Deborah, once a comedy superstar, now a washed-up standup in Las Vegas and QVC saleswoman. Their manager, played by a frazzled Paul W. Downs, who was Trey in Broad City and one of the show’s cocreators along with Lucia Aniello, pairs Ava with Deborah to help her freshen up her comedy act. Both are resistant to the idea. Their relationship is compelling to watch as the two alternate between sparring and bonding and become more invested in what they are creating together. This show has gathered many awards, all deserved, especially Jean Smart as the charismatic, narcissistic Deborah.
“Teenage Bounty Hunters” (Netflix) (2020)
This criminally short-lived show, produced by Jenji Kohan from “Orange Is the New Black,” was one of the funniest series in recent memory. It’s about two sisters, Blair and Sterling, who somehow end up becoming, yes, bounty hunters. Maybe it’s a tough premise to sell, but this show is hilarious and touching from start to finish as the sisters confront, in addition to bounty hunting, the challenges of their conservative super-Christian southern environs, exploring queerness and heartbreak, and confronting family drama.
As Elizabeth Flux wrote in The Guardian, “The shtick of having two teenage girls starting out in what is the traditionally hyper-masculine field of bounty hunting would have been enough to sustain a show. But here the writers aren’t simply going for ‘good enough’: instead, the premise provides an entertaining and compelling backdrop to something that is part teen drama, part comedy and part coming-of-age story, which also takes aim at issues of privilege, race and class, as well as exploring gender expectations and sexuality.”
The relationship between the two very different sisters as they share inside jokes, ass-kicking, and arguments, is the best part.
“This Way Up” (Hulu) (2019-2021)
This is another British miniseries, like “Catastrophe,” with Sharon Horgan in it! In this show, she plays the sister of our protagonist, Aine (Aisling Bea), who is trying to put her life back together after a nervous breakdown landed her in an inpatient facility. I loved watching the two Irish sisters’ dynamic in this show, and especially the silly, witty humor and love we see between them.
“There is a special charm in the scenes featuring Bea and Horgan, who beautifully capture a particular kind of intimacy between sisters: easy companionship, bottomless forgiveness, barely held tongues, long-buried frustrations, profound trust,” writes Linda Holmes in NPR. “They’re so funny just being together, particularly in unguarded moments like a long scene in which they lie on their backs with sheet masks on, that the moments in which the tension twists between them are doubly significant.”
“Insecure” (HBO Max) (2016-2021)
This show, starring Issa Rae, has its fair share of romance but I’d argue the central love story is between Issa and her best friend Molly. The two women, who live in LA, are very different – Molly is a high-powered lawyer while Issa is toiling away at a sometimes-misguided education nonprofit and going through a big breakup. Despite their differences, the two are always there for each other. Honestly, while I got kind of tired of the endless will-they-or-won’t-they love triangles and sometimes quadrangles of this show, the heart that held it together over its five seasons was the friendship between Molly and Issa. I was infinitely more affected by their fights than by Issa’s fights with her love interests, and much more invested in their relationship.
“Broad City” (Hulu) (2014-2019)
If you haven’t seen “Broad City” yet, I don’t even know what to say to you. This is a generation-defining show about two ridiculous best friends, Abbi and Ilana, in their 20s in New York City. It is everything “Sex and the City” is not. Instead of glamour, it leans into the grossness of its setting, and no topic is TMI. This show is particularly special to me because I watched it with my best friend as it came out around the time I moved to New York. While their antics are much more out-there and druggy than ours, this show is also one of the sweetest portrayals of friendship I’ve ever seen. As single women in New York, they are each other’s ride-or-dies who would do anything for one another.
As Anna Makiewicz writes, “Theirs is a full-on, loved-up platonic romance, which sustains the women through those moments when life feels too hard and the world too senseless (2020, anyone?). It is a friendship founded on radical acceptance and unwavering, if a little misguided, devotion. What couldn’t you do, I thought, with a friend who sincerely believes that you are ‘the best artist this world has ever seen’, with the ‘ass of an ageless angel’, as Ilana reminds Abbi on the daily? In return, Abbi works tirelessly to save Ilana from the depths of melancholy, whether of the Seasonal Affective Disorder variety, or political (read: Trump era) despair.”
Most media loves to tell us that romantic relationships are the most central in our lives, but “Broad City” abuts that notion. I’m a sucker for any show about friendship, and this one sets the curve.
