Since I work in the business of talking television, I am often asking people what they’re watching. And this summer, the predominant answer – usually in the rushed, conspiratorial tone one takes when admitting a guilty pleasure – has been Suits, the glossy legal procedural which ran on USA from 2011 until 2019 and recently arrived on Netflix. My sister is watching Suits. My boyfriend’s mom is watching Suits. I am now rewatching Suits, a show I enjoyed 10 years ago but mostly forgot about other than as a fantasy of sexy tailoring and the launchpad of one Meghan Markle.
I’m not alone; the show has broken several Nielsen viewing records this summer in the US and became Netflix’s most-watched acquired series in a single week, for a streamer that once had Friends, The Office, Breaking Bad and more in its library. Suits accounted for 18bn minutes of viewing on streamers in the month of July (which also coincided with record-low viewing for linear and cable TV, where Suits originated). Suffice to say, a lot of people are watching Suits this summer.
