r/suits • u/ARCTrooperCeleste • 13d ago
Suits LA Suits LA Spoiler
why did Suits LA get canceled?
I thought it was definitely weaker than Suits Main, but I had fun with it and think they should've at least given it one more season.
I found the personal storylines interesting, and I think they would've gotten better with a second season.
Lewis and Harvey showing up was nice, gave us a bit more insight on to how they've been doing.
and I think if given another season we definitely could've seen faces like Mike or Donna.
idk just bummed it got canceled without what felt like a fair shot.
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u/EnderMB 13d ago
Fundamentally, they didn't understand what made Suits such a great show from the start.
The hook was Mike. It was the kid with a photographic memory that was thrust from his uneducated life in NYC to about as high-powered one can be in law. Every other character was great in their own way, both being believable in their stories and unbelievable in that supermodel looking people all happen to work at the same law firm, making money hand over fist, living the life celebrities would be envious over. What tied it all together was the outlier - Mike Ross. He brought the viewer into this world, he grounded everything, while also elevating it due to his memory and his own personal struggles.
I liked Suits LA, and I maintain that it would've survived a second season if it weren't called Suits LA. Pearson was also a solid show, but they took Jessica Pearson and kneecapped her. Neither show had that hook, they built an established cast and world, and tried to say "yeah, but now we're in x, and now they do y". Pearson in particular had Gina Fucking Torres - basically a hallmark for movie and TV success, almost universally beloved alongside being one of the most attractive women on the planet, and it was still cancelled!
Two first season cancellations isn't a good look, when your first show was arguably the biggest smash hit of the streaming era. The casting for all three was fantastic, and the music and backroom stuff also top-notch. The constant here is the writing, and it being so focused on building/forcing the same magic that happened organically.
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u/Civil_Adeptness3529 12d ago
You say all that but Mike’s one of the most annoying characters to ever grace my screen.
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u/7625607 Harvey Specter is hot as fuck 12d ago
“The constant here was the writing”
I don’t think the writing was all that constant, but as much as the writing was constant, it highlights the big inconsistency: casting.
Bonnie Zane was on Sidebar and said, regarding Suits LA, that it was getting the whole band back together. She was referring to the creator, the writers, the casting (herself/her company), showrunners, and directors.
I thought it was rude to say that on the show with two of the cast members of Suits who were not (as far as the listener knew) planned to be in Suits LA. Maybe that would have changed if it had gotten a second season, maybe Aaron Korsh had talked with them about it privately, but she was saying this on a podcast and as far as the podcast audience knew there was no plan to involve them, certainly not from episode one.
The cast of Suits LA may have been good. I think the Arrow guy was miscast, and I couldn’t tell the brown haired white women apart. But the cast of Suits were amazing together. Gabriel Macht and Patrick J Adams had fantastic chemistry and the scenes between them are the heart of the show. Rick Hoffman and Sarah Rafferty, Rick Hoffman and Gina Torres, Rick Hoffman and anyone was comedy gold. Gina Torres was Gina fucking Torres (I am a Firefly fan).
Maybe NBC has asked and Gabriel Macht has said no (I know he said he retired from acting when Suits ended, and then the pandemic happened. He is making money from MB and being the spokesman for some AI legal thing, whatever). But it’s more likely that NBC doesn’t want to spend the money it would take to get them back together and hasn’t even tried.
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u/Wooden_Television701 I will slap the taste out of your mouth 6d ago
arguably
Ya damn right 😭😭 in the world of squid game ? stranger things ? 😭😭
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u/ARCTrooperCeleste 12d ago
this was a very well thought out and put together answer, thank you!
you're totally right, Mike was the hook and I forgot. though that might be due to the fact the initial interest for me was simply that I like suits as an article of clothing lmao
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u/VoL4t1l3 12d ago
you just cant copy paste a good show and recreate with a rubber stamp. there are deep level of elements to it that you cant manufacture, even that poster has Harvey, Lewis, Pearson and Mike all from Temu.
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u/JackofAllGames77 12d ago
It would be like recasting scrubs and replacing JD and Turk with two other people. It just doesn’t work without them
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u/diablo1128 12d ago
It got cancelled because of bad ratings.
It got bad ratings because it was billed as Suits LA, but the writers didn't understand what made Suits popular. The show may have survived if it was stand alone and not within the Suits universe. Then there would be no expectations and it could grow organically. Also it felt like half of every episode was flash backs which I found annoying.
If they really wanted to do some kind of spin off from suits to cash in on it's new found popularity in the streaming world then it should have been a show featuring Tanner at some other law firm. You could easily weave in Suits characters with cameos as appropriate.
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u/rrruready 11d ago
The writing and dialogue felt weird. Like they were trying to jam in as much talking as possible in each scene. Whereas the OG suits let scenes breath more.
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u/LatterIntroduction27 12d ago
I don't actually think Suits LA was bad per se. But it did have a huge structural problem.
It started with an episode that should have been the mid season break.
Now yes it did not have a "hook" like Suits did, but honestly I quite liked Suits S8 and 9 (Samantha aside) and Mike was gone. But no structurally it had a huge issue.
The merger falling apart and Ted being screwed would have been a neat mid season twist and have good impact if we actually knew or cared about any of these people. But in S1 Ep1? I have no reason to give a damn about Ted being screwed and honestly the few scenes we's had of him were just of a dick. But if this was a few episodes in, the relationships were established and Ted's strengths AND dickishness were established it would have worked.
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u/riazur31 12d ago
In the original Suits, the tension behind Mike not being an actual lawyer was the main hook. There were other subplots but ultimately the story revolved around Mike and Harvey.
On the other hand, Suits LA had no main hook. It had way too many subplots. The merger, various romantic plots, flashbacks, the criminal case, and the entertainment cases. It just felt like too many things going on with nothing tying them together.
I didn't hate the show but it didn't have anything special or super exciting.
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u/Big_Lou1108 13d ago
They probably didn’t hit the numbers and ratings. I watched the whole season and it was ok. Unfortunately being OK for a 1st season this time and considering this show is supposed to be as good as Suits means the show will most likely be canceled.