AS SEEN ON: “Trust Me” markets office politics
By Brittany Coombs, The Dartmouth Staff
Published on Wednesday, January 28, 2009
While their peers aspired to be police officers, firemen or environmental activists, Mason and Conner of TNT's new character drama "Trust Me," which premiered Monday at 10 p.m., had different ambitions growing up. Best friends since grade school, the talented twosome dreamed of poolside tanning, expensive hors d'oeuvres and perpetual hangovers. When they eventually landed jobs as yuppie ad execs, those dreams became reality.
Produced by the same minds behind "The Closer" and "Nip/Tuck," "Trust Me" chronicles the evolution of Mason and Conner's friendship after Mason receives a promotion at Rothman, Greene and Mohr, the premier ad agency where the friends have worked for years.
The hitch, though, is that the promotion makes Mason the boss of his longtime pal.
On top of that, the dueling dynamos have personalities that mix like oil and water. Mason (Emmy winner Eric McCormack), an art director, is a loyal husband and father. Conner (Golden Globe nominee Tom Cavanagh), Mason's copywriter, is a boozing womanizer with the attention span of a mosquito.
Cavanagh, most recognizable to folks our age as J.D.'s ne'er-do-well big brother Dan on "Scrubs," is happy that his current character is just as unsavory.
"I like the fact that he's immature, petty [and] shallow," Cavanagh told online review publication Monsters and Critics. "Immature and brilliant. He feels like a very real guy."
McCormack, meanwhile, is most famous for his role as homosexual lawyer Will Truman on the hit show "Will & Grace." Unlike his new co-star, however, McCormack was ready for a change.
"I had eight years of gay," McCormack said in an interview with Monsters and Critics. "It's nice to be able to play some of the marriage stuff."
Though "Trust Me" is not the first series to exploit the dynamics of the ad agency business, McCormack and Cavanagh claim that the show focuses more on the people, and less on the profession.
"It's not like people have been lining up saying, 'When is an advertising show going to come along?'" McCormack said, most likely alluding to the Emmy-winning cable series "Mad Men," which focuses on ad execs living in the 1960s. "But ['Trust Me'] is not about advertising. It's about two characters that connect, that are riffing off each other."
Cavanagh, in a sit-down with WoodTV.com, explained the difference between "Mad Men" and his new project.
"Modern-day office politics is probably a good way of looking at our show," he said. "[We focus on] the tears and humor that come with the pettiness of the workplace."