This mid-1980's series could hardly be described as groundbreaking. A critic called it "a series you can't refuse" and it was a pretty apparent effort at taking advantage of the "Godfather" movies' success. Throw in love between a son from one rival family and a daughter from another, a plot which was already old when Shakespeare used it in "Romeo and Juliet", and you've pretty much got it. That having been said, the show had an expensive, movie-style look about it and a fine cast. Ironically, this probably helped to kill it. Most soap-opera type shows (and this pretty much was that) take a good while to build an audience; with the amount that this show must have cost to make per episode there was little time for that to happen due to the amount of money being lost. (Another problem is that serial-type shows have to be huge hits in order to have more than nominal value as reruns; without huge buzz few viewers will watch again to see the outcome of story lines they already know.) This show was better than lots of the other fare available at the time but suffered also from being against "Remington Steele", arguably a better copy of James Bond-style intrigue (and starring a future Bond) than this was of "Godfather"-style crime wars, and was failing to hold for ABC the audience share which it was being delivered by another high-cost show, "Moonlighting", so it had to go.
