I’m not going to say the CBS drama Cane doesn’t have some likable, even interesting, components- because it does. But it’s also kind of like Brothers & Sisters in that at heart, it’s a soap. But it’s got a little more violence and grit. It’s not unlikable, but it does seem a little thin.

To summarize, Cane stars Emmy-winner Jimmy Smits as Alex Vega, a former street kid (as we’re reminded every episode, or so it seems…) who has risen to take over the rum company - or is it ‘empire’ - run by his Cuban émigré foster dad, Pancho Duque (Emmy winner Hector Elizondo). Pancho just recently turned over control of the company to Alex, which caused a major rift with Pancho’s biological son, Frank (Nestor Carbonell, late of Lost). The story involves Alex and Frank’s in-house feud as well as their ongoing battle against the powerful rival company run by Ken Howard as Joe Samuels. Samuels, years back, kidnapped the Duque daughter in a move to get some land, and it ended up the daughter was killed. The recent reveal was that Pancho had Alex with him at the time, but never told Frank about the Samuels connection. Frank recently found out and was shocked- not only at the slight, but at the fact he’s dating Samuel’s daughter, Ellis (Polly Walker, Rome). We’re lead to believe Polly is more on the Duque side than her dad’s side, but then we realize in another shocking turn, she actually is still hooked on Alex - isn’t everyone, in this show - with whom she had an affair.

So, you can see what I mean by the soap. Hey, I have no problem with the plausibility of any of this - businessmen are capable of anything. It comes off a little less realistically than it did on say, Damages, but it’s interesting back story, at least.

The problem is with the front story. I have seen maybe three episodes of this show, spaced out over the two or so months Cane has been on, and Frank and Alex have the same argument over who respects who and who’s the boss every episode I’ve seen. That’s not interesting anymore! There’s some criminal stuff and murder here and there that peps things up, but the basic family conflict is redundant as saying Rita Moreno and awesome actress.

Which is another problem, Rita Moreno is an awesome actress, but this show is totally going with the old school Latin view of women pretty much across the board. This means Moreno’s character, Pancho’s wife Amalia, gets to be strong, classy, and supportive of her husband. Ahhh, she just knows him so well. Plus, she’s down for the family and good manners. And she tells off the kids when they get out of line. These great traits, however, don’t pass for a storyline. It passes as an admiring caricature. Not that Pancho gets to do much more but be the aging major domo, either. If you’re going to put actors with heft in your show, people, don’t just do it as a tribute. Look at what Moreno did on Criminal Intent last season. Let her do something for you, too.

Again, I’ve only seen a bit of the series, so.

In general, women don’t fare too well on this show. Alex’s wife, Pancho’s daughter Isabel (the one who didn’t get killed) is more or less a younger, more feisty version of her mom. Sometimes she gets to do the Nora Walker thing ’cause her son, Jaime, is going into the army. The Vega daughter Katie goes to nightclubs and gets inadvertently put on a sex tape. In one episode I saw, someone threatened Isabel and someone threatened Katie. Isabel turned to Alex who threatened her threatener. Katie turned to her uncle Henry, who seems to not give a crap about not running the company, and he threatened her threatener. That’s how real men take care of their women on Cane.

Would-be Duque, Ellis, is probably the most interesting woman on the show. Her betrayal by her cold-blooded dad was a shot to the gut. But then they had to ruin it by showing her fatal attraction-ish thing for Alex and, in a sense, his family. What is this, "Everybody Loves Alex"? Jaime’s fiancée is kind of interesting too, a kind of poor white trashish girl who is maybe having second thoughts over marrying a filthy rich dude.

And there’s other weird stuff, like a scene where Alex confronts Frank about his gambling problem by bringing a print out of Gamblers’ Anonymous groups. Who the heck let that scene get into a show?

But weirdest of all is some of the casting. The actress playing Isabel is a full 25 years younger than Smuts, and it shows. She is also only 15 years younger than the guy who plays her son. And it shows. And did they really need to make Frank a full foot shorter than his brother just to hammer home the ’second favorite’ thing? Kay, it’s only four inches difference, but still…

But that isn’t to complain about Carbonell. I didn’t think I’d dig him on this show, as I haven’t really liked him too much in anything. But he might be the best character on the show. He’s messed up and frenetic and he’s really going to flip out when he finds out his girlfriend used to be with the golden child.

I can hear him now "Eeevvverybody loves Alex…"