"Trust Me" - Episode 6 for Chattanooga Free Press

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

"Three Messages and still no cigar."

Read the blog post at the Chattanooga Times Free Press...
From the moment we see creative director Mason McGuire at home with his wife, Erin (Sarah McGuiure), plotting and pleading for a weekend getaway and working extra-hard to convince her that yes, he is serious, we know: this respite is doomed.

If you happen to appreciate “Trust Me’s” redeeming qualities—and it does have a few—you would say “plausibly predictable.” But if you’re more inclined to write it off as one more barely marginal cable series struggling for relevance, this getaway set-up represents another example of triteness and lack of imagination.

Yin and yang.

Of course, and it’s true in most any profession we’d care to name, these things do happen. Week upon week upon month piles up. Deadlines, stressful days, a few nights and weekends here and there. Intimate relations begin to feel ignored. Promises are made and broken; made and broken. A bit of scar tissue builds up. 

You see a window of opportunity for family time or a short vacation, it gets just within reach, and the Next Big Thing swoops in to wipe it out. In the ad game—as with our guys Mason and Conner—it’s almost always the Big Pitch. Here, the “secret” initiative to represent Chicago in its bid for the 2016 Olympics.

And so, this particular episode revolves around one hectic weekend and an all-hands-in race to prepare multiple options, with Mason fretfully half in and half out, leaving Conner “in charge” to comic effect and the staff’s near mutiny while he juggles a downtown “stay-cation” with his very miffed spouse.

I think I saw this one with Ricky and Lucy down at the club.

It’s worth mentioning—many of the things we in the ad trade might view as clichéd, regular viewers are probably less familiar with and more likely to find entertaining.

In last night’s episode alone—we see creatives who cling to their own ideas; the career-obsessed vs. the family obsessed female; the temporarily in-charge underling who goes power crazy; and the non-creative boss who has a little seed of an idea he chooses to pursue despite offering high praise for a whole range of other options fully executed in blood, sweat and spray-mount. All of these could be seen as one shade or another of an ad biz trope, but in the context of a one-hour drama/comedy, it’s all in how it’s played.

In the end, it’s not “destination TV”—the characters are under-baked, Mason and Conner are too much alike, and there’s not enough support to truly fly as an ensemble. Watchable, and mildly entertaining, but well short of engrossing. 

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POST-SCRIPT: Oh, yeah: the massages. Conner’s getting one in his office early in the hour, while Mason and his wife go for a couples massage at their hotel. Conner in a constant state of relaxation—a massage is the last thing he needs. Mason’s too concerned about his wife’s male masseur and his own “nude vs. semi-nude” decision. Alas, he takes a call on his cell and leaves with a stiff neck.