IN one of the sleazier ideas in the world of product placement, TNT has come up with a series about a fictional advertising agency in which actual sponsors of the series, like Dove, are clients.
The series is called, ironically enough, “Trust Me.”
If that’s the question, the answer is an unequivocal, “No.”
That trick is about as trustworthy as a reality show where the contestants are actually supposed to get married.
Anyway, because “Mad Men” is the show everyone else wishes they had come up with, TNT, too, is doing a show about an advertising agency. But they’ve taken it out of New York City and out of the 1960s. The agency, Rothman Greene & Mohr, is located in Chicago and it’s set in 2009.
In place of cool guys in Italian suits drinking martinis and smoking filtered cigarettes (oh, how I love you, Don Draper), we have neurotic screamers in T-shirts who always need a shave and drink Starbucks or bottled water. And even then, they vow to give up caffeine.
“Trust Me” stars Eric McCormack (“Will & Grace“) as art director Mason and Tom Cavanagh (“Ed“) as copywriter Conner. Mason is a hard-working married man with a beautiful wife (Sarah Clarke) and two kids, like Don Draper, but without the interesting back story. Conner is the single one.
Problem is, neither feels real enough to care about one way or the other.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The series isn’t bad. It just isn’t all that good.
And compared to “Mad Men,” it’s positively juvenile.
The women (of which there are basically two, even though this is not, repeat not, 1963) are insecure and desperate. To prove this is 2009, however, Rothman Greene & Mohr does have a female CEO. Unfortunately, she’s like Charlie of the Angels, and we never get to see more than her hand.
Real-life brand managers of the show’s sponsors will make cameos.
This might be huge in the ad world, but in the real world – trust me – no one’s going to tune in because Larry the Unilever guy is making his TV debut.