Just wait until you catch up on Penn Badgley’s podcast…

There were many important decisions to be made in the noughties. Did you love or hate Jar Jar Binks? Were you Team Jen or Team Angelina? And, vitally, were you more of a Seth Cohen or a Ryan Atwood girl? Your decision on the latter said a lot about you, with the two frontmen of US teen series The OC representing very different things.

The naturally cool Ryan wore a white vest, came from the wrong side of the tracks and spoke in monosyllabic grunts. Seth was a neurotic, verbose and geeky emo. Both were undeniably hot, but you had to pick one.

It turns out that perhaps a lot more of us were Seth fans than we maybe let on back then, judging by the monsoon of emotion the actor who played him, Adam Brody, has unleashed in Millennials since his return to our screens in smash hit Netflix series, Nobody Wants This.

In his role as ‘hot rabbi’ Noah, he is the love interest of Kristen Bell’s agnostic, very LA podcaster Joanne, based on the show’s writer and creator Erin Foster. Noah is wise, warm and witty and he knows exactly what to say to make the rather damaged-by-dating Joanna feel safe (some female viewers reported that they burst into tears when he uttered, ‘I’m on your side. I can handle you’).

Nobody Wants This quickly became one of the platform’s most viewed shows this year – and Brody discourse took over social media. One viewer summed up the phenomenon perfectly when they wrote on X, ‘One day you’re 14 daydreaming about Adam Brody’s fictional character, and next thing you know you’re 34 daydreaming about Adam Brody’s fictional character…’. Another wrote, ‘I’m confused why Adam Brody hasn’t been cast in every romcom to ever exist? He’s perfect? I’m in love with Seth Cohen AGAIN?!’

It might be exactly because Noah is very much what a grown-up Seth Cohen would have been like that this nostalgic love affair has been sparked. We are suddenly reminded of all our teen selves ever wanted in a man. It’s also rare to see love stories featuring leads in their forties (both Brody and Bell are 44) so celebrated in the mainstream.

As Brody points out, Nobody Wants This is a romcom just when we need romcoms the most. ‘We’re at a tense time, [the show is] something that celebrates love and is positive and funny – it’s a warm feeling,’ he told Jimmy Kimmel last week.

The fact that Brody was on The OC while his wife of 12 years, Leighton Meester, played Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl has not gone unnoticed either, with a sort of teen TV multiverse emerging around them (Bell was the voice of Gossip Girl throughout the series, and she and husband Dax Shepard are real life best friends of Brody and Meester).

Leighton Meester and Adam Brody at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in February 2024. (Photo: IMAGO) ©IMAGO

Meanwhile, Meester’s co-star, Penn Badgley, who played Dan Humphrey, has been the subject of a renewed Millennial crush himself thanks to Netflix’s You. Then there’s Dawson’s Creek star Joshua Jackson (Pacey Witter), who’s seen a resurgence in attention thanks to a hot appearance at the Emmys last month.

As one comment on X read, ‘If Joshua Jackson ever realises how much power he has over elder Millennial women, there is truly no stopping him.’

Something feels very right about having the rather gentle leading men of our youth back in our hearts and on our screens. In fact, we’re seriously considering putting posters on our bedroom walls, too…