TV is the New Reading

“Trust Me” vs.

“Lie to Me”

TNT takes a cool behind-the-scenes look at what drives today’s consumer culture through the prism of two best friends – an art director and a copy writer – in “Trust Me.”

In the pilot episode their boss, Stu, has a meltdown when a top client wants to rework its ad campaign and he throws a full-blown hissy fit. Stu then has a heart attack and dies. Stu’s boss, Tony, approaches the art director, Mason, played by Eric McCormack (“Will & Grace”) to take over the department. Mason pleads for his friend, Conner, played by Tom Cavanagh (”Love Monkey”) to be promoted as well, but is denied.

Naturally, Conner gets upset at what he sees as Mason’s undeserved elevation, but that’s not the only thing going on. There’s still an ad campaign to redesign and there’s in-fighting among the departments as to who’s going to lead it. Also, one of Stu’s final acts was to hire an acerbic, high-maintenance writer, Sarah, with whom Mason has some sort of history. What will Mason’s wife think of his working with his old flame? I guess we’ll find out.

Pilot episodes are hard to judge because there’s so much story they need to put in motion, but this one set things up pretty well. There are hungry, 30-something professionals working tooth-and-nail to stay on the cutting edge with their awards and their highwire jobs in their high pressure Chicago offices, and the first 10 minutes are a good illustration how that level of stress can come with a body count.

In and among all of the in-fighting, we got to see the creative process at work – a Roman gladiator texting his wife while he’s battling lions that he’ll be home around “VII-ish.” And a superhero theme that went nowhere, but inspired a tag line “Arc Mobile - Beyond the Call.” So they brought that up in the context of a priest on a motorcycle talking to cheerleaders to a focus group, who didn’t love it. And a series of images set to George Michaels’ “Freedom ‘90” to be revocalized by Ladysmith Black Mambazo with the tag line “Freedom’s gonna ring.”

None of these take. Instead, Mason saves the day with a truly surreal campaign – which the client enjoys. And the tag line? Credit Conner, at the last minute, texting: “What can you do with one hand?”

Throw in the minor sabotage Mason used to stymie a competing department and the devious, back-biting corporate intrigues add yet another layer to this sharply drawn comic drama.

“Trust Me” airs 9 p.m. Mondays on TNT.

‘Lie to Me’

By contrast, last week’s pilot episode for FOX’s “Lie to Me” was a little floppy. It set up everything it needed to set up and introduced the eagle-eyed Cal Lightman, played by Tim Roth, and his merry band of investigators.

What it did not establish especially well was the point. The show is wading into a thoroughly saturated grid of crime procedurals, and wacky characters who share unnecessarily intimate details about themselves and their lives because they just can’t help themselves and impossibly disorganized storylines and plot twists aren’t going to cut it.

Even the superlative storytelling abilities Roth brings to the table doesn’t change the fact that when his team is called in on the investigation of a teacher’s murder, halfway through, the department who brought them in is questioning the very process they were called in to apply.

Me, I love profiler shows, but I don’t see this as qualifying. Lightman has to be in the room with the suspect or staring at a video looking for micro-expressions – fleeting, involuntary and unavoidable facial tics that tell him if someone’s lying. He caught a couple of breaks with some photos being taken here and there which gave him (what luck!) exactly the salient points he needed to solve the crime. Otherwise, if he doesn’t have film to look at or a person to talk to and micro-expressions to analyze, he’s not going to be especially useful as an investigator.

I’d even watch the show just for Roth, who’s just wasted in a role like this (and in terms of talent, I’d put him up against pretty boy Simon “The Mentalist” Baker any day of the week). Unfortunately, it’s on against “Criminal Minds,” which honestly is a much more satisfying show. I don’t put up with a lot of crime procedurals, so I need the ones I do watch to be good ones.

“Lie to Me” airs 8 p.m. Wednesdays on FOX.

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