This Monday at 10 p.m., Tom Cavanagh and Eric McCormack are going to kick off the new series “Trust Me.” TV's former Ed Stevens and Will Truman play Conner and Mason, both creative partners at an ad agency.

As Conner, Cavanagh embodies the exact same character he had played throughout his career on such shows as “Ed” and “Scrubs.” Once again, he gets to be the man-child who can’t grow up and coasts on his charm. The 45-year-old actor, with yellow teeth and bags under his eyes, might not be so convincing by playing Mason’s copy-writing partner, who drinks, talks, womanizes, and pouts too much. As for the character Mason, McCormack, tries to bring some gravitas to his part to help viewers get past his years on “Will & Grace,” and apparently he is managing to pull it off better than his co-star.

The two are extremely codependent best friends, with Mason playing the care-taking, self-denying father figure to Conner's rebel teen. But when they get down to business together, they make magic. If "Trust Me" and "Mad Men" have anything in common, well it must be the poetic aura of the collaboration scenes in which the ad campaigns are developed. They almost make viewers forget they are writing sales pitches and not love songs.

 

The first two episodes of "Trust Me" serve as an introduction to the well-cast ensemble. The show begins with the agency’s struggling to create a campaign in order to satisfy a major cell phone client.

 

Monica Potter, who also played in “Boston Legal,” plays the part of a new employee who is very determined, quite obsessed to get her own office with a window. She turns out to be a neurotic woman who struggles with her own overrated ego. Due to the fact that she won a Clio award she thinks she deserves special treatment from everybody. And Sarah Clarke, who played Nina on "24," in this movie embodies Mason's wife.

 

Eventually, this movie wants to be a comedy with romantic influences, but...there is something about it that critics do not like. Is it the fact that Eric McCormack can not overcome his Will-like image or is it old “Ed” who cannot seem to play the character of a serious, responsible man? In spite of all this, all in all, “Trust Me” is a likeable project. It is up to its viewers to decide whether it is good or not.