Pilot

Plot

At the Pearson Hardman law firm in Manhattan, Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht) convinces his client Gerald (John Bedford Lloyd) to sign a deal by lying and telling Gerald that Pearson Hardman has already been paid. Meanwhile, Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) is nearly caught taking the LSAT for someone else. Shortly after, his marijuana-dealing friend Trevor (Tom Lipinski) offers him a job: Trevor cannot meet a client and needs someone to deliver some drugs. Mike refuses the job.

In the morning, managing partner Jessica Pearson (Gina Torres) promotes Harvey to senior partner. To his annoyance, company policy requires he hire a Harvard Law School graduate as his associate attorney. His interviews are already set for tomorrow. Mike learns that he cannot afford to keep his grandmother (Rebecca Schull) in a private nursing home. To make the money, he agrees to make the drop for Trevor tomorrow. As Trevor leaves his drug supplier, he overhears that the drop might be a sting operation. The suppliers find Trevor eavesdropping and force him to stay overnight so that he can't warn Mike of the possible set up.

The next day, Harvey finds that none of the interviewees are promising. Mike discovers the set-up and runs into Harvey's interviews to escape the police. He is mistaken for a candidate. When he walks into the interview, the suitcase opens and the marijuana falls out. However, Harvey is impressed with Mike's quick thinking, eidetic memory, and encyclopedic knowledge of law. Mike also displays a drive to become a better lawyer than any Harvard graduate. Despite Mike's lack of a law degree, Harvey hires him. He instructs Mike to stop talking to Trevor and to get rid of the suitcase, which Mike hides in his apartment.

On Mike's first day, Harvey is demoted because Gerald discovered Harvey's lie and fired the firm. Jessica threatens to have him disbarred if he steps out of line again. Harvey immediately fires Mike, but rehires him when Mike threatens to tell the truth. Harvey then demands that Jessica return his senior partnership. If she does not, he will tell the ethics board that Jessica did not fulfill her duty to report misconduct. She returns his promotion on the condition that he personally handles a pro bono case. He reluctantly accepts, but he assigns it to Mike instead. In the suit, Nancy (Dagmara Dominczyk) claims her boss Charles Hunt sexually harassed her and then fired her under false pretenses. Eventually, Mike is able to convince former employee Joanna Webster (Kristen Bush) to testify.

Production

Pre-production

On April 5, 2010, USA announced that it was developing seven new pilots for its 2010–2011 television season, including A Legal Mind, which would later become Suits. The premiere was written by Aaron Korsh, and David Bartis and Gene Klein served as executive producers. It was later announced on May 17, 2010 that USA ordered a ninety-minute cast-contingent pilot for the series. The network later picked up A Legal Mind on January 19, 2011 and ordered eleven one-hour episodes in addition to the 90-minute pilot.

Conception

Creator Aaron Korsh, whose Notes from the Underbelly sitcom was canceled during the 2007–2008 Writers' Strike, wrote a spec script intended to be a "half-hour Entourage-type based on my experiences working on Wall Street." He later realized that the project should have hour-long episodes. Korsh and his agent took the script to several production companies and wanted to give the script to Universal Media Studios. However, Korsh found it odd that the studio did not want to sell the script to NBC, the network the studio typically worked with. Korsh's agent convinced USA Network executive Alex Sepiol that although the series was neither a procedural nor what the network typically did, he would like the characters. Sepiol approved of the script, and by then, Hypnotic Films & Television signed on to the project. The team pitched the script to USA, which bought the script after the pitch. Korsh did not pitch it to anyone else. When rewriting the script, Korsh made only small changes to the first half-hour, up to when Mike is hired. Originally, Mike did not take LSATs for others and only pretends to have attended Harvard, as opposed to pretending he attended Harvard and has a law degree. Korsh noted that there is no degree or test needed to work on Wall Street and be a mathematical genius, unlike the bar examination in law. He decided to "embrace" this difference and change the premise.

Casting

The series stars six cast members. On July 7, 2010, Patrick J. Adams was the first actor to be cast and was given the role of Mike Ross, a college dropout pretending to be a Harvard graduate. Gabriel Macht was cast as corporate lawyer Harvey Specter on July 26, and on August 8, Rick Hoffman joined the series as Harvey's jealous rival Louis Litt. On August 24, Meghan Markle and Gina Torres were cast as paralegal Rachel Lane and senior partner Katherine Pearson, respectively; the characters were later renamed Rachel Zane and Jessica Pearson. Sarah Rafferty rounded off the main cast as Donna Paulsen, Harvey's assistant.

Filming

The episode was filmed in New York City, where the series is set, and is the only episode to be filmed on location. The rest of the series is filmed in Toronto, where the sets are built to be identical to the New York law offices seen in the pilot.

Release

Promotion

To promote the series debut, USA had an advance screening of the pilot on June 2, 2011 at the Hudson River Park and distributed free Häagen-Dazs Sundaes cones at the viewing. The network also had branded ice cream carts, bikes, and scooters give away the Sundaes and USA/Entertainment Weekly 2011 promotion summer guides on June 22 and June 23 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston to promote the pilot.

Ratings

"Pilot" originally aired on USA Network on June 23, 2011 at 10:00 pm after Burn Notice. The series debuted to an estimated 4.64 million viewers and received a 1.6 rating among adults aged 18 to 49. The episode was watched by an estimated 2 million people aged 18 to and 49 and by about 2.1 million people aged 25 to 54, a double-digit growth over the January premiere of network's other legal drama Fairly Legal. The pilot ranked number nine in the top viewed basic cable shows for that week.

Critical reception

Critical reception to the pilot episode was mixed. Ginia Bellafante, writing for The New York Times, stated that the series "erupts from a Mount Vesuvius of absurdities" and described the plot as preposterous. She pointed out that the episode, like so many other USA series she described as "forged seemingly on creative autopilot", ignores all the negatives and only portrays the positive in an attempt to "appeal to the fantasy of second chances and sexy opportunities." However, she said that the series comes in "relatively good faith." She felt that the episode was amusing at its start, but it "quickly descends into cloying buddy escapade." Diane Wertis of Newsday gave the episode 4 out of 5 stars, but she conceded that viewers must not think "too hard" about the premise or the fact that the other characters have not figured out Mike is not a lawyer. However, she praises the series' effort to delve deeper than the usual USA series. She also praises the dialogue, stating that the characters are "whipping banter around the office like racquetball champs", and hopes that the series will go deeper into the characters. The Futon Critic's Brian Ford Sullivan felt that the episode moves slowly as the lead characters do not meet until twenty minutes into the episode and the episodes main storyline does not appear until ten minutes after that. He said that the first twenty minutes before Mike and Harvey's first meeting feels like "extraneous origin story" and even when those plot points are reincorporated into the plot they are "tangential and distracting." He described the premise as "the-less-you-think-about-it-the-better" and agreed that the premise was "improbable." However, he felt that once the episode reaches the series' true premise, "there's plenty of sparks to go around." He praises the "amusing back and forth" between Harvey and Mike and likes the inversion of the good guy and bad guy are forced to work together trope. He stated that it is difficult to not be charmed by both the characters and the show.

David Hinckley of the Daily News rated the episode 3 of 5 stars and stated that the episode "stretch[es] credibility until it screams for mercy" and notes that the casework in the episode mostly serves as a means to allow Harvey to declare his lack of personal investment in his clients. He commented that a future relationship between either Mike and Rachel or Mike and Jenny is not difficult to predict. However, Hinckley said that the series is worthwhile if the viewers could get past the premise. He also praises the amount of "character fodder" and described the dialogue as "snappy with a pop-culture flavor." Brian Lowry at Variety stated that the series "weaves together elements of White Collar, Fairly Legal and Psych." However, he said that the series' shortcomings stem from "the dangers of buying concepts off the rack." He felt that although Mike is humanized by his youth and financial need, Harvey comes across as "a swaggering ass", a handicap not even the characters' playful banter can overcome. He also stated that the supporting cast are accessories to primary characters that are not colorful and stated that it is difficult to "get too excited about a couple of empty suits." Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette compared the series to TNT's Franklin & Bash and said that Suits fares better as it is more realistic and is more grounded in reality. He commented that the series' appeal comes from its "snappy banter." He felt that Adams made a "winning impression" and Mike's character serves as a balance to Harvey's.