Suits Was The Perfect House Replacement

Suits had all the qualities that made House successful

Plenty of great medical dramas premiered after House and were influenced by the series, including shows that became very successful like The Good Doctor. For example, Chicago Med, which premiered in 2015, was inspired by many medical dramas, including House​​​​​​. Even series that were already airing when House became a hit, such as Grey’s Anatomy, also incorporated some of the tropes and character dynamics used in House. However, the perfect House replacement is not any medical procedural but rather a legal drama – Suits, which premiered just a year before House ended.

While Suits falls into a different genre from House, there are plenty of similarities between the shows that make the former a great pick for those looking for something to watch after House. Like House, Suits took something relatively ordinary – the day-to-day lives of corporate lawyers – and made it into a compelling show with which audiences quickly connected. Suits is not fun just for those who are familiar with the world of attorneys, just like House never required viewers to be medical experts to enjoy the series and understand the characters’ journeys.

How Suits Was Similar To House

Larger-than-life characters solving cases every week

The biggest way Suits was similar to House is how they both could take average cases faced by lawyers and doctors, respectively, and turn them into hour-long TV adventures. Naturally, House’s cases were not always medically accurate, just like Suits would sometimes require too much suspension of belief. However, being fully accurate to how these professions work in the real world was never the focus of either House or Suits. Both shows understood that some liberties had to be taken if they wanted to tell fun, engaging stories every week.

Another similarity between House and Suits is how they both follow extraordinary characters as the protagonists. While Dr. House did not have a gimmick like Mike Ross’ photographic memory, Hugh Laurie’s character was far from being an ordinary doctor. Gregory House was a genius, arguably the most brilliant medical mind to have ever existed in the world of the show. Inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, House was a fascinating character both as a doctor and outside of his job, and it's difficult to picture how the show would have worked without such a strong protagonist.

The same can be said for Suits, which had two strong lead characters as well as an impressive cast of ing names. Mike Ross, played by Patrick J. Adams, was a young genius who, despite not having graduated from any law school, was better at his job than all of the associates at Pearson and Hardman. Likewise, Harvey Specter, played by Gabriel Macht, had a strong personality that was only matched by his skills – a description that also fits Gregory House perfectly. Shows like House and Suits can only work if their main characters are interesting enough, and they were.

House & Suits Nailed Procedural TV

House and Suits are perfect procedurals

The character arcs featured in House and Suits were great, and both series had plenty of fan-favorite characters who got to steal the show. However, similar to House, Suits was a procedural TV show first and foremost. For procedurals, the “case-of-the-week” formula has to be nailed, otherwise it does not matter how interesting the characters are. Seeing House banter with his team or coming up with a new way of wasting Wilson’s time was always fun, but these elements needed a strong main storyline to exist around. Likewise, House’s clinic duty scenes were hilarious, but they were all very brief.

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House’s cases followed a formula, and it was not difficult to predict how they were going to be solved. Even still, the show found a way to make them work every week, to the point House became not only one of the best medical procedurals but one of the best TV procedurals in general. A similar thing happened to Suits, which debuted with a two-part pilot but became a “case-of-the-week” series starting from episode 2. The B storylines about things like Mike’s personal life were interesting enough, but the main cases were usually the highlight of the show.

House & Suits Are Still Successful Years After They Ended

Both shows continue to be successful on streaming

A major indicator of how Suits ended up being a spiritual successor to House is how the former has become a streaming hit just like the latter. House was recently added to Netflix in some regions and quickly made its way to the streamer’s global chart, which is not unusual for popular shows that are added to a streaming platform but highlights how big the medical drama still is. House continues to find new audiences almost 12 years after the show ended and countless reruns all over the world. Suits, which ended in 2019, is experiencing a similar phenomenon.

was the most streamed show in 2023, suring The Office for the record of most streamed minutes in a year. The fact that Suits is now more popular than ever despite having concluded almost five years ago shows that the series has withstood the test of time and was not just a product of its era. It is difficult to think of a medical drama released shortly before or after House ended that achieved a similar status, which is why Suits can be considered the best House replacement regardless of their different genres.