Aphrodite - actually she goes by Grace Valentine - is the head of a dating service, which employs her son, Eros (Kristoffer Polaha), Hercules (Robert Baker), and Phoebe (Autumn Reeser). They all reside together in a lovely mansion with a hot tub, where they plot their matchmaking schemes while Grace juggles her lover, Hephaestus the god of fire (Patrick Fabian), and her husband, Ares the god of warfare (Greg Ellis).
The hour is whimsical, but too often self-consciously so, as the gods goof around while working on the cutesy couple of the week. When the gods bring a mortal romance writer into their love business, to help them lure lovelorn people away from their computers, the show loses its way.
"Valentine" is followed tomorrow at 9 by "Easy Money," a slightly more interesting CW drama about a family who's as steeped in cash as the Greek gods are steeped in love. By the way, neither series looks or feels as though it belongs on the network of "Gossip Girl" and "90210" and there's a reason for that: After failing to get a foothold in the Sunday night ratings, the CW has essentially leased out its Sunday airspace this year to an independent production company called Media Rights Capital. Unlike the CW's chosen products, MRC has not blatantly strewn its products with youth cultural artifacts as a shortcut to reach younger viewers.
Like "Valentine," "Easy Money" features a familiar actress as a matriarch of sorts. Laurie Metcalf, wearing a bright red wig, plays Bobette Buffkin, who runs her family's high-interest short-term loan business, Prestige Payday Loans. Bobette is fierce about her work - Metcalf is entertainingly convincing - and she depends heavily on her middle son, Morgan (Jeff Hephner), when it comes to collecting unpaid loans and seizing assets.
