Nobody’s Willing to Trust Me
TNT’s new ad agency series Trust Me doesn’t have a gay hook … except for co-star Eric McCormack, known throughout gaydom as Will from Will & Grace. After brief stints with the TV movie The Andromeda Strain and executive producing Lifetime’s dating service series Lovespring International, Trust Me, which also stars Tom Cavanagh, was supposed to be McCormack’s big return. Except, the news isn’t good: Its premiere attracted just 3.4 million viewers, and by the second week the show found just 1.9 million. Maybe it’s TNT’s own lack of faith in the show that explains why the networ’s publicity team wouldn’t make McCormack available for an interview with Queerty.
I think this show is a tough sell. McCormack has such a presence still from Will and Grace that people are probably expecting something similar from him. In fact, he turns in a really interesting, mostly dramatic, performance here. After the second episode I was more interested in his character and wondering where they will take his character next.
The problem is that the environment they’re operating in on the show, i.e. advertising, isn’t inherently very interesting. Mad Men aside, this show lacks a palpable “hook” – comedy? Sex? Deviousness and evil? Mad Men has all those, this one has none. What it does have is characters who attempt to sound clever, who ape emotional poignancy, but who don’t quite get there.
It needs….something. I like all the actors and I want to root for this show….but it’s missing a hook, something unique to make me go “Oh, I have to watch it tonight.” So far that hook simply isn’t there.
Either they need to paint the characters as good guys, shocking guys, bad guys, funny guys, or something – because right now the show is too much of a mishmash that is sort of dull.
They make an interesting duo in the show and the show is good – I’m just not convinced it’s anything special though honestly what is these days? Granted I frequently seem to enjoy the shows that networks pull the plug on – Futurama, Kitchen Confidential, Headcases, and Dead Like Me to name a small sample – so I’m probably not their target demographic.
i agree with felicia… i love tnt, and the show was heavily advertised during my fave, The Closer. but i wasn’t compelled to tune in by what they offered, which was literally “two kinda different friends at work.” and though i loved Will & Grace, i’m not a huge fan of McCormack’s acting… sorry!
A show like this would do better on FX. I never watch anything original on TNT, but I watched most of the pilot because I love Eric McCormack as Will.
But…the show was boring, plain and simple. I’ll quote from the better written Will and Grace, “they tried to please everyone and, ironically, ended up pleasing no one.”
The pilot was also erily identical to the pilot for thirtysomething. I mean the plot and situations were almost identical. Lame. Here’s something radical, why not do something new?
Tom Cavanagh stared in a gay themed movie in 2007 called “Breakfast With Scot” (http://www.breakfastwithscotmovie.com)
He portrays a retired hockey player turned sports commentator who lives a rather secret life with his partner, a lawyer.
The lawyer’s nephew comes to stay with them. Not the ‘boy’ they expected, the nephew challenges their notions of masculinity.
They understand more about themselves by allowing him to be himself.
The movie was first time a professional sports league and team in Canada or the USA allowed their logo and uniforms to be used in a gay-themed movie.
Watched both episodes and the “good guys” are so flawed that there is little difference between them and the “bad guys.” Consequently there is not a single character in which to emotionally invest.
And everything is so overwhelmingly earnest that it becomes too dense to digest. I mean a cell phone tag line being interpreted by focus groups as being about masturbation handled with straight faces? Lighten up dudes.