I can’t even begin to imagine what these people were thinking. I’d guess millions of dollars went into developing Caine, the mega-hyped CBS TV series starring Jimmy Smits. Other than being a lukewarm Sopranos and poor man’s Godfather, the show seems reasonable enough, if not groundbreaking. The casting is a bit unfortunate in that Smits, I suppose, wanted to employ all of his Latino friends, so the faces are a tad familiar. The plots are a tad clichéd and the acting is, well, it’s okay, but I won’t be following the series. Smits with the goatee doesn’t help, either.

The ads for the show are the likely cause of death. CBS’s ad guys are just monkeys, and they seemed clearly afraid of this show—afraid to offend Latinos. All of the publicity clips had Smits seemingly struggling with the English language, which is absurd considering Smits doesn’t speak Spanish very well. He’s obviously taken some lessons as here he emits occasional flourishes in Spanish. All the dancing girls and gangsta Latino music are intended, I suppose, to evoke CSI: Miami, a really great show that jumped the shark a couple seasons back, a screed on that soon to follow.

Caine, however, probably won’t last. The kiss of death here is the family name, which the show now owns to the point of non-recovery if they tried to fix it. I can’t begin to imagine what the devil these people were thinking when they named the big, scary, main family Douque, which is unfortunately pronounced “Dookay.” I’m not sure whether or not I need to explain “Dooky” is an urban colloquialism for excrement. Since CBS spent x-millions on Dooky, I’ll assume, yes, I do.

I can’t take the Dooky family seriously. I just break out into a snicker every time I hear the name, and I can’t begin to fathom how that could have possibly made it all the way thru development without somebody—anybody—raising their hand and saying, “Y’know—the name is stupid.”

I suppose this is what happens when you let actors produce. More on CSI: Miami later…