Beelzebubbly: CW's 'Reaper' Is Tempting Fare

Then again, even when Elizondo exits, there'll be plenty of two-legged hams left, prancing around the sugar fields of Florida where this messy multi-generational saga is set. That the dynasty is Cuban American does add a colorful new note to the proceedings, but mostly it's the same old power-and-money struggle, with the Duques fighting among themselves but occasionally uniting to battle the evil Samuels family, who want to take all that lovely sugar and turn it into succor for the world's rum pots.

"No sale of our land to the Samuels!" barks Pops as he divides his empire into three parts. "Not now, not ever!" It sounds like the kind of outburst that's usually followed by a heart attack in stories like this, but no, the old man doesn't so much as hiccup.

Jimmy Smits, looking pretty sheepish about the whole thing, plays Alex, the adopted son whom Pancho favors over, as the colorful saying goes, issues of his own loins. Somewhat surprisingly, though Alex appears to represent The Good Guy in all this, he enjoys listening to the gunfire over a cellphone that tells him a family foe has been shot to death. No sweetie, he!

The elegantly ageless Rita Moreno lends a note of dignity to the affair, but young cast members Eddie Matos, Michael Trevino and Lina Esco seem to have been chosen mainly for their looks. Nestor Carbonell, meanwhile, seethes and snarls as Alex's sworn enemy, "Cane's" Cain to Smits's Abel.

How weary it all seems, taxing the actors to reach for something fresh in a script that's mainly leftovers -- a big dinner scene as in "The Sopranos," then a long, long party sequence as in "The Godfather," with borrowings from many another family epic along the way. One of Alex's pet projects is for ethanol to be made from sugar, not from corn, but "Cane" is a reminder that corn can still be put to plenty of use -- at least as long as TV producers try to foist off schmaltz like this.

Reaper (one hour) premieres tonight at 9 on Channel 50.

Cane (one hour) premieres tonight at 10 on Channel 9.