We urgently need to discuss the 'concerning' plot point in Nobody Wants This.

Nobody Wants This comes across as the most delightful new show on television.

Which is no surprise given its background.

The new Netflix series follows the classic story beats of an old-school rom-com, yet works from a script heaving with dialogue and characters that feel compelling and fresh.

It also features a team-up that the likes of Marvel could only dream of, pairing the star of the iconic teen series Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell, with the star of equally iconic teen series The OC, Adam Brody.

(Of course, both actors have a string of impressive credits that followed these roles, but I think we can all agree these particular shows are the main selling point here.)

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In Nobody Wants This, Bell plays Joanne, the outspoken host of a dating and relationships podcast, who falls for Brody's sweet and funny Noah, after realising he is a rabbi and they have very little in common.

Despite the fact that nobody in their lives wants them to be together, Joanne and Noah battle through angry exes, awkward family dinners, and a brutal case of getting The Ick, and continue to fall madly in love as the episodes roll on.

As I watched Nobody Wants This, I was enthralled by the chemistry between the two leads and the incredible performances of the supporting cast (with special mentions to Justine Lupe, who plays Morgan, and Jackie Tohn as Esther). Yet one of the most enjoyable plot points from the series was bubbling away just below the surface, never properly mentioned yet still of great importance.

The characters' ages.

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While it's never stated specifically in the show how old Joanne and Noah are, the actors who portray them are both 44 years old in real life, so I assumed that their characters were of a similar life stage.

The characters' ages never felt like a plot point that deserved an extreme amount of interrogation, until I listened to an interview with Bell and Brody and discovered they both held a wildly different opinion.

In an episode of the Armchair Expert podcast, hosted by Bell's husband Dax Shepard and Monica Padman, Bell and Brody discussed how their own ages weighed on their minds while shooting the series.

When Padman asked Bell during the podcast how old Joanne is, Bell said her age was debatable before adding, "She's maybe 30ish… add 12."

Brody went on to say that his age was one of his biggest concerns going into the show, with Bell then adding: "I said, 'is anyone going to acknowledge or are we going to talk about the fact that we're probably about 10 years too old to be doing this?'

"I'm very comfortable with my age," Brody continued. "I just don't want to pretend that I'm 10 years younger. I want you to reconcile that you're casting me and you've got to account for the amount of time that this person has been on this earth and why they are in this position."

Dax Shepard went on to say, "I see movies and I have to say, this is the story of someone who is 24 and everyone in this thing is 40. The story dies as you get older."

Bell replied, "They tried to give evidence for that [why she's still single in her late 30s or early 40s]. Saying she's in a bustling city of podcasters and influencers and hot stuff, so you can push your desire to settle down much further down the line."

While it has to be acknowledged that every person on this particular podcast episode is an actor, and therefore used to delving into the backstories of their characters to figure out what makes them tick and how they fit into society, I never found the characters' ages to be concerning. Or in need of any drastic backstory or explanation.

The fact that these characters appeared to be in their 40s was the most compelling and fresh part of this entire series, and to me, its true power lay in the fact that it was left unspoken.

Dating and relationships in your 40s have always been a pillar of pop culture, yet they are usually played out in a very specific way. Either used for big laughs in what is thought to be an absurd situation (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) or finding the hilarity in a moment where everything apparently shifts because of your age (This Is 40).

From classics like Meryl Streep's It's Complicated to movies of more recent years, such as Julia Roberts in Ticket to Paradise, if a woman falls in love in her 40s it's because she's supposed to have already lived a 'real life' of children and marriage. Pop culture has told us that we only want to follow a 'comeback' story, a story of a woman who lived a traditional life and is now setting off on a new adventure (even if that adventure is falling in love with her ex-husband).

Even this year's Anne Hathaway vehicle, The Idea Of You — while thought to be boundary-pushing in many ways — still followed the traditional rom-com path of a woman in her 40s, breaking away from a life anchored in motherhood and being a wife.

Forever hammering down the point that finding a second love in your 40s is empowering while finding a first love at that time is concerning.

Of course, any person in their 40s has some story to tell, some series of events that led to the person they are now and explains where they have landed.

Yet it doesn't have to be as definitive as stepping away from a 'traditional' life or a tragic backstory anchored in embarrassment.

What Nobody Wants This gave us was the idea that people in their 40s could be starting the most exciting chapter of their story, rather than just looking for a do-over.

And that's not concerning at all.

Nobody Wants This is now streaming on Netflix.

Laura Brodnik is Mamamia's Head of Entertainment and host of The Spill podcast. You can follow her on Instagram here for more entertainment news and recommendations.