Around this time last year, Stephen Amell returned to network TV to play Ted Black in Suits LA, which NBC greenlighted after the original Suits crushed on Netflix. Unlike its parent series, however, the spinoff failed to generate positive buzz and was cancelled after just one season. Now Amell has chimed in with his thoughts on why Suits LA didn’t work.
Amell is no stranger to the TV business, not only for his eight-season run as Oliver Queen on Arrow, but also from working on Heels for two seasons, amidst various recurring and guest roles. So when he was asked on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum about what happened with Suits LA, he admitted that it “wasn’t good enough” and “ultimately, it was a failure.” However Amell caveated that it wasn’t a “complete failure” because it still ended up being ordered to series, whereas there are many TV pitches that never even make it to the pilot stage. He then continued:
Look, ultimately, I think that the blame rests with me because whatever problem you have with the show, because I think that there were issues, but it's my job to solve those, to smooth them over, to gloss them up with some type of performance or something, tangible or otherwise, that covers up those mistakes. Because you do something that is magnetic, that is charismatic, that fixes those problems. And I didn't do that. I didn't find anything ultimately with Ted Black, that character, that translated, that smoothed those things over that gave us a chance to keep going.
Stephen Amell’s Ted Black was an entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles who previously worked as a federal prosecutor in New York City. Unfortunately, Amell wasn’t able to spice up the character with his performance, and he considers that to be the main reason Suits LA wasn’t successful. That said, he also acknowledged that even before the spinoff premiered on NBC, there were concerns about its quality due to conflicting visions:
When I saw the pilot of Suits LA, and this goes back to about a month after we finished shooting, I sat down with Aaron Korsch, who created Suits and Suits LA, and he was editing the pilot, and he was like, ‘I don't know if this is going to work.’ And a lot of what he wanted to do seemed to run up against what the network wanted… I don't want to say they battled because I wasn't a part of those conversations so I'm not going to speculate, but it just seemed like what he wanted to do and what they wanted to do were different.
Of course, every show has its growing pains, and Stephen Amell told Michael Rosenbaum that he and the rest of the Suits LA team thought they’d get another season to “work out some of those issues.” Ultimately, NBC decided it wasn’t worth it and pulled the plug. You’re welcome to judge Suits LA for yourself, as it can still be streamed with a Peacock subscription. Overall though, this is yet another example of how just because one show is popular doesn’t mean that success can be replicated in a spinoff, especially if the same kind of premise having to be watered down because it’s on network TV rather than cable.
Fortunately for Stephen Amell, he’s already bounced back in a big way. He’s set to star in Fox’s Baywatch reboot as Hobie Buchannon, the son of David Hasselhoff’s Mitch Buchannon who was first played by Brandon Call in the original Baywatch’s first season, then by Jeremy Jackson for the rest of the series. The reboot has been ordered straight to series, but it hasn’t been announced yet when it will premiere on the 2026 TV schedule.
