Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: suits, suits: la

Suits LA Seemed to Have Everything Going For It So What Happened?

By all accounts, NBC's Suits LA should have been a hit - so what happened? Let's look at what didn't work and some baffling decision-making.

Every TV season has its disappointments, surprise flops, and cancellations, and Suits LA might be one of them. The original Suits became a huge streaming hit on Netflix in recent years, with higher viewing numbers on the streamer than when it was originally a cable TV hit on USA Network back in the 2010s. How many shows last nine seasons these days, let alone on basic cable? So when NBC announced a new version of the series with a new cast set in Los Angeles for 2025, it seemed like a no-brainer. Suits LA was a sequel and spinoff with tangential links to the original series, with a strong cast led by Stephen Amell. It sounded like a strong start. Yet the series was cancelled at the end of its only season. What happened? We have some thoughts.

Who Exactly Was The Heart of Suits LA?

The original Suits originally rested on the chemistry between Gabriel Macht and Patrick J. Adams as hardass lawyer Harvey Spectre and brilliant fake lawyer Mike Ross as they worked together to win Harvey's cases. That central buddy movie dynamic was fun and laid the foundation for the duo's relationships with the rest of the cast including Harvey's will-they-won't-they romance with his street smart secretary Donna Paulsen (Sarah Rafferty), Mikes burgeoning romance with junior lawyer Rachel Zane (Meghan Markle), and their frequent clashes with their insecure and comically petty colleague Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman).

Suits LA lacked a central duo relationship, or couldn't decide who the lead character, Ted Black (Amell), was supposed to have as his main foil. Was it supposed to be his former best friend Stuart Lane (Josh McDermitt) who betrays him in the pilot and steals law firm out from under him as payback for being an asshole? Or entertainment lawyer and needy puppy Rick Dodsen (Bryan Greenberg), who left to join Stuart? Or Kevin (Troy Winbush), Ted's other best friend and private investigator from New York? The series couldn't seem to decide.

Early viewers liked Amell's chemistry with McDermitt when they played off each other with Ted being the angry asshole and Stuart as the more likable foil who could stand toe-to-toe with him. However, the series separated them from the pilot and made their eventual reconciliation a long-running but still unfinished arc. The problem is that the pilot introduced us to Stuart's betrayal of Ted and separated them before we could invest in their relationship. Stephen Amell is an expert at playing the angry asshole with the heart of gold who happens to be right but without an equal to undercut Ted's more unlikable traits, he was left alone as a raging asshole most of the time. Then the season spent most of the season teasing which of the other characters he was supposed to form the show's core relationship with, so that the audience could follow and invest in. In the final episodes of the season, the show still felt undecided.

Everyone's Whiny in the Same Tedious Way

As the season went on, the characters in Suits LA got increasingly whiny and petty, and all in the same way. They griped about not getting a promotion or a better office and then talked interminably about personal feelings. Every talk is in the same way, and in every other scene, and it gets more tedious as the series goes along. The series lacks the variety of personalities and attitudes of the original Suits. For a bunch of top-tier tony lawyers, they all whine like 14-year-olds who can't keep their mouths shut when they should really be saving that personal stuff for expensive therapists. We don't need an entire cast that acts like the original series antagonist-frenemy Louis Litt! When you hear one of the cast whining about not getting their way and throwing a tantrum, you yearn for the wit of the original Suits, speaking of which…

Fans Still Preferred the Original Suits Characters

Maybe it wasn't such a great idea to have some characters from the original series show up as guest stars. Sure, getting Macht to return as Harvey Specter for three episodes as a passing of the torch sounded like a good idea, but it only reminded fans that they would rather see a sequel with the original characters. Getting David Costabile back to guest briefly as original series villain Robert Hardman during that arc, then getting Rick Hoffman back as Louis Litt in the later episodes of the season, only made fans even more nostalgic for the original Suits over Suits LA. It ended up reminding the fans that they preferred the cast of the original series, while there has been too little done to endear them to the cast of the new show. That might have sealed the show's fate.

Suits LA may be cancelled, but it is streaming on Peacock if you want to binge it. You would probably prefer to watch the original Suits on Netflix.

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