Thursday, September 8, 2011

Suits: This Fall’s Newest Marathon


Unfortunately, the season finale of Suits is this week, so if you haven’t already been watching it, you’ve missed your chance.  The good news though is that Suits is on USA, so likely sometime this October or November (or heck, even this month) you can likely catch the entire season on one long Saturday or Sunday.  And even though it would be quite the feat of lazy to watch the whole thing in one sitting, it would be worth it.

Suits is one of the summer dramas that have become so popular lately with TNT and USA, allowing them to eat up ratings without worrying about competition from the major networks.  Somewhat of a surprise though is how well done this show is, and it likely could stand toe-to-toe with some of the bigger networks offerings without issue.  It’s a legal drama, and we’ve all had our fair share of those, but the dynamics between the characters is what really makes this a fun show to watch.  The two main characters are Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), the typical full of himself private attorney looking to make the big bucks and boost his ego at the same time, and his loyal sidekick-associate Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), who lied about going to Harvard (Harvey knows) but luckily has a photographic memory and is pretty sharp, so can get away with it.  The two work together on their cases while Mike tries to stay afloat, both in his personal life and at the firm.  There are typical foils, with Louis Litt (Rick Hoffman) playing the mousey villain of the firm, and Rachel Zane (Meghan Markle) as the hard-to-get love interest.  Thankfully though, these two characters do not stick to type, with Louis being pretty likeable at times while still being an ass, and Rachel being a believable female character who is actually worried about her job and having a career, and not just getting with Mike.  I also have to mention Jessica Pearson, the managing partner of the firm, who is played by Gina Torres, simply because if you’ve seen Firefly, it’s always exciting to see one of the cast members in another show or film.

The plot lines for the episodes follow typical drama tropes, with one big case and one smaller case per episode being the average.  There are also the typical personal issues spread amongst the cases, but they aren’t overbearing since the back and forth while working on the cases is the most fun.  The banter and subterfuge between the characters to win the cases is also light and witty, and helps keep this from being a holier-than-thou courtroom drama (especially since they almost never go to court).

If you’re looking for something to watch this fall, I would highly recommend Suits.  Hopefully it will be on Netflix instant and I believe it already is on Hulu, but you can always count on USA for a marathon if those don’t pan out.

John Hackert is a columnist and wishes he could pull off a vest with his suit.

No comments:

Post a Comment