TNT's new adman series 'Trust' looks promising

The best TV commercials come on strong and state the message clearly. By contrast, the best TV series are sometimes slow to develop. A brilliant pilot can leave a series no place to go (see, most recently, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"), while a complex, seemingly staid premiere can lay a foundation for great drama (as in "Hill Street Blues," for instance).

While it's as comical as it is dramatic, TNT's new advertising series "Trust Me" tends to fall into that latter category. All the pieces appear to be in place to make this appointment TV - most of all in the form of an engaging cast - but the pilot, debuting at 9 p.m. Monday, Jan. 26, does little more than set things in motion.

The familiar Eric McCormack and Tom Cavanagh are perfectly positioned as a complementary set of Chicago admen. McCormack takes the fussiness he showed on "Will & Grace" and rechannels it into Mason, a fastidious, details-oriented art director and devoted family man. Cavanagh, meanwhile, who was the quirky title character in "Ed," is now Conner, an equally eccentric and even more brilliant ad writer and, not coincidentally, a committed bachelor.

Opening with a nifty little reference to Ridley Scott's infamous "Share the Fantasy" ad for Chanel No. 5, the pilot immediately establishes that these are two guys who enjoy their work, especially when it sends them on El Lay photo shoots with plenty of poolside downtime. Yet they're called back to Chicago (cited in name only; aside from some establishing shots of the lovely 333 W. Wacker building, this appears to be entirely a Hollywood production) with the promise to work on the Super Bowl of advertising, which of course means a Super Bowl spot.

That turns out to be a lie, of course - this is the ad world, after all - but when the domineering, high-strung creative director, who insists clients are "idiots" to be bullied and bludgeoned with the very notion of "cool," blows himself out with a heart attack, Mason gets promoted by Griffin Dunne's Tony Mink to the top hands-on job at the firm, much to Conner's chagrin.

All right, that's straightforward enough, if a mite routine. Mason frets, Conner has his little snit, complete with the moment at the funeral in which he gets up in front of everyone and says, "Thank you, Stu, for showing me there are more important things than work," then he straightens himself out just in time to reunite with Mason and save the advertising day.

Throw in Monica Potter as Sarah, an almost equally egocentric newbie at the firm and, yes, all the pieces are in place. For what? Not much in the pilot, but there are hints that these three are going to form an intricate triangular relationship, what with Mason and Conner's partnership strained, and with Conner forming an instant rapport with Sarah (suggested by a scene in which he's trapped hiding beneath her desk - with her sitting at it).

The quick pitch is this: Although Monday's premiere is fairly formulaic, these are three interesting characters who should bring viewers back from week to week. There's much to be done to play them off one another, if creators Hunt Baldwin and John Coveny can mix their recent work on "The Closer" with their previous 20 years of experience at J. Walter Thompson and Leo Burnett.

They may or may not deliver on that promise, but hey that's the nature of the ad world. With AMC's "Mad Men" setting such a stylized example, full of intrigue and melodrama, "Trust Me" could have simply tried to take that '60s advertising period piece and bring it into the present day, but it's got something else going on, something a bit more humorous and not so readily grasped. That's the foundation it's set itself, and a viewer will just have to see what they build upon it.