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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carrie Fairchild" data-source="post: 429374" data-attributes="member: 673">Cane: not completely forgotten, as it gets a mention on here occasionally, in relation to its creator who would go on to revive/kill (depending on your point of view) Dallas a few years later. Originally titled Los Duques, the script was picked up by CBS before being bundled into a deal that Jimmy Smits had with ABC Studios, to both star in and produce series. Smits played the lead role of Alex, adopted son of Pancho (Hector Elizondo) and Amalia Duque (Rita Moreno) and heir to the family rum and sugar empire. The Duques had three children by birth - Frank (Nestor Carbonell) who was angry that his adoptive brother was getting preference over him, Isabel (Paola Turbay) who in true soap opera fashion, was married to her adoptive brother Alex and then youngest son Henry (Eddie Matos). Rome actress Polly Walker and Dynasty andThe Colbys star Ken Howard played Ellis and Joe Samuels, the daughter/father duo who were the Duque’s main business rivals. I need to watch the show in full but I think it’s probably the closest that any of these forgotten soaps got to replicating the look and feel of the 80’s/90’s primetime sagas. It was straight up soap, unlike some of the quirkier 00’s sudsters, with a hint of crime (much like what we’d see on TNT Dallas).The series premiered to decent ratings of 11m, the highest CBS viewership for that timeslot since Judging Amy nearly a decade earlier. However, ratings quickly fell to lows of 6m-7m, a big drop off from its lead-in The Unit, which was pulling in 10-12m viewers. It was also being thrashed by its timeslot competitors, Law & Order: SVU (12m viewers) and Boston Legal (9m viewers). Production was paused in early November 2007, due to the writers strike. All 13 produced episodes aired (the final episode in December attracting 7.19m). Cane then went into limbo. In his EmmyTV Legends interview, Hector Elizondo spoke fondly of the show and of his disappointment when it was finally cancelled. By his telling, they were initially told that production would continue when the strike ended but as the weeks passed and the strike dragged on, it proved too expensive to keep the sets up and the cast on hold, so the plug was pulled. The cancellation of Cane was officially announced in May 2008, presumably in time for the upfronts. In addition to low ratings, I think Cane is yet another example of a good show that just aired on the wrong network. The CBS drama slate at that time was almost completely crime procedurals with its only serialised dramas that season - Cane, Moonlight and Swingtown - all failing.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?