Suits LA Review: A Hit Legal Series Gets an Uneven Reboot with Stephen Amell

Maybe you remember the USA Network’s original-programming heyday.

From the early 2000s through 2020 or so, it had its own signature brand of high-gloss, lighthearted shows, most with an emphasis on crime and breezily performed by attractive casts: Monk, Royal Pains, Psych, Burn Notice and White Collar. (There are more.) If you could arrange these shows on a platter and cover them with plastic wrap, you’d have a caterer’s perfect pastry presentation.

Probably the best known USA series was Suits, a sleek Manhattan legal drama that ran for nine seasons (and recently resurged on Netflix). For 108 episodes, it also happened to feature Meghan Markle, the now-Duchess of Sussex, as an ambitious paralegal named Rachel Zane.

This gives the show a special place in royal history, although what was really most memorable about Suits was Patrick J. Adams’ breakout performance as legal genius Mike Ross. His narrowed eyes glinted with impressive analytical shrewdness. Oh, was he good!

Now Suits has been moved out to the West Coast and rebooted as NBC’s Suits LA.

The new show focuses on a powerful entertainment-law firm that’s on the verge of collapse as its founding partners, Stuart Lane (The Walking Dead’s Josh McDermitt), and Ted Black (Arrow’s Stephen Amell, looking a bit like the original series’ Gabriel Macht), hit what might be described as a rough patch.

This doesn’t bring out the best in either of them or in their staff. The first three episodes, in fact, are at their most entertaining, and most promising, as all the lawyers maneuver to snag promotions, field counteroffers and throw dirt at opponents.

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Unfortunately, Suits LA doesn’t have Suits’ smoothness, sexiness or snap, all of which probably had something to with the original’s enjoyable, easygoing shallowness. Here, there seems to be a misguided attempt to drum up gravitas for Amell’s Ted.

Early on, he’s pleased as punch to spot George Clooney in a swank restaurant, and real-life stars (including the late John Amos) have a way of popping in and out, playing themselves. But the show tends to spend too much time on earnest, soggy explication of Ted’s complicated history.

He used to be a Manhattan prosecutor, you see, but he abandoned that career after a messy case ended with a Mob informant going kablooey. (Some of this ties in with Mach’s Harvey Spector on Suits.) After a while your mind drifts back to Entourage, the foul-mouthed but lively HBO comedy that starred Jeremy Piven as agent Ari “Hug it out, bitch!” Gold.

Ted’s past is of much less interest than his new clients, among them a movie producer (Alias’s Kevin Weisman) accused of murdering his partner while they were at target practice and ingesting large quantities of ecstasy. Much more suitable.

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Suits LA premieres Sunday, Feb. 23, at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.