"Trust Me" - Episode 1 For Chattanooga Times Free Press

By Doug Cook for the Chattanooga Times Free Press
Doug Cook is a Creative Director at ND&P

“Fear motivates. Envy drives. But only true friendship endures.”

Or so says the promo trailer for “Trust Me,” TNT’s new dramady that debuted last night at 10.

In the tradition of virtually all hour-long debuts, beaucoup ground is covered: we meet all of the primary characters and learn where they fit in the food chain of this mythical Chicago-based big agency; we hear a key creative boss—an unreasonable guy who drives everyone around him and himself unreasonably—meet his untimely demise (age 43), setting up the promotion of one-half of the writer-art director pair at the show’s center.

We catch bits of real work taking place—the brainstorming of a campaign, a major internal work review, a big pitch to a prospective new client, a management type sailing down a hallway calling out for full boards in two hours. (Heard that.)

And a personal favorite: A quite plausible version of the Great Value of Tag Lines debate, featuring newly-promoted creative director Mason vs. a couple of junior creatives who’ve informally pitched a campaign with no tag. After the youngsters slam the whole tag line question as so much Old School drivel, Mason reels off a string of house-hold phrase tag lines from “Just Do It” to “Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs” that, along with his rank, sends them skulking back into cube-land.

Read the full blog post here at the Chattanooga Times Free Press...