Bringing Back Original Cast Members Wasn’t Enough to Save Suits LA

Theoretically, Suits LA had a lot of things going for it. It was released on the heels of Suits’ Netflix renaissance, it came from the same creator as the original series, Aaron Korsh, and even promised the return of fan-favorite original characters like Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) and Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman). But unfortunately, none of those were quite enough to make Suits LA worth the watch. And viewers concurred, with NBC canceling the show after one season.

To start, Suits LA just doesn’t have as compelling of a hook as its predecessor. The inciting incident in Suits involves Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) being hired by Harvey Specter to the prestigious Pearson Hardman law firm, despite the fact that he doesn’t have a law degree. We spend the entire first season wondering if Mike and Harvey’s ruse will be discovered all the while watching Mike outperform his peers who actually went to Harvard law.

Now the first season of Suits is by no means perfect, but it has enough of a draw to keep us watching. Aside from the gripping premise, the characters have phenomenal chemistry – it’s not hard to believe that many of them have worked together for years.

In Suits LA, on the other hand, the series begins with an unexpected betrayal between law partners Ted Black (Stephen Amell) and Stuart Lane (Josh McDermitt). Lane shuts Black out of a merger with another law firm, and essentially leaves him to fend for himself. It’s an interesting idea, and certainly a shocking way to begin the series, but with very little context of who these people are and why we should care about them, the betrayal ultimately falls flat.

Suits has done this kind of thing multiple times. Pearson Hardman goes through a number of mergers and restructurings throughout the series’ nine seasons. But the series does so once we’re familiar enough with these characters to recognize the stakes. The underhanded deals and betrayals hit harder because we know what they have to gain and lose.

The characters of Suits LA also fail to match the level of chemistry the original cast had. Even though there were plenty of characters in Suits who didn’t get along, they still had a compelling rapport with each other. In Suits LA, it just feels like everybody hates each other, but not in any way that’s remotely interesting. Erica (Lex Scott Davis) essentially gets mad at Leah (Alice Lee) for having work boundaries just because she doesn’t know how to say no herself. Guest stars Patton Oswalt and Brian Baumgartner have beef not once, but twice in a season for some reason.

Ted and Stuart have a somewhat similar relationship to Harvey and Louis – Stuart feels like Ted constantly belittles his skills but also considers Ted to be his best friend and like a brother to him. But despite the fact that the series brings in both Harvey and Louis to try and get that idea through to us, Ted and Stuart still can’t escape their shadow. Bringing Harvey and Louis into Suits LA reminds us how good we had it with the original series, and that no matter how hard this show tries it just can’t capture that same magic.

“There can be many, many reasons why [Suits LA isn’t resonating], people are speculating why it hasn’t resonated, but it’s just not really showing the potential to grow for us in the future, unfortunately,” Jeff Bader, the president of program planning strategy at NBCUniversal Entertainment told reporters after the show’s cancellation. “We had to look at the performance of the shows, both on linear and on digital. We had to see the ones that looked like they had growth potential in the future.”

It is a shame that TV shows don’t have as much room to grow as they once did. Who’s to say that Suits LA wouldn’t have found its stride in a second season as so many other network shows have before? But at the same time, the show should have been able to stand on its own. Its ties to Suits should be enough to bring fans in, but it’s up to the show itself and its new characters to keep them tuning in. 

It seems pretty clear now that not even bringing back fan favorite characters was enough to give Suits LA the viewership numbers it needed to keep up with its predecessor nor was it enough to make the series worth tuning into. Watching Harvey and Louis interact with these characters just reminds how good we had it, and how badly Suits LA missed the mark.

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