{alltv} USA's unconvincing 'Suits' comes up empty

Sometimes when you change directions, you get a little bit lost.

There's no question Suits represents a shift in approach for USA, which has prospered up till now using a formula of light, airy entertainment. But you can only be airy for so long before you start to float away, which is why Suits attempts to ground the formula somewhat and make it a little edgier.

It's not dark, mind you: That's something the "blue sky" network is not yet ready to embrace. But it does count as "partly cloudy."

Unfortunately, it also counts as ludicrous, ill-cast and ill-conceived, with a premise that's idiotic even in a medium used to skimming past idiotic premises. The show centers on Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), a high-powered attorney who hires college-dropout scam artist Mike Ross (Patrick Adams) and passes him off as a lawyer to the members of his firm. The supposed payoff is that Mike has a super memory: "I like to read, and once I read something, I understand it, and once I understand it, I never forget."

We're supposed to believe Harvey would endanger his career because he thinks he can use Mike's abilities to advance his clients' interests and because he sees something of himself in Mike. (What you may see is the vague outlines of White Collar, a far superior USA series.) But the idea never takes hold because there's nothing in Macht's Harvey that convinces you he would risk so much just to serve as a mentor, or anything in Adams' Mike to make you think he's worth the risk.

And there you have the show's other fatal flaw: stars who are not charismatic enough to get you past the holes in the premise, a problem compounded by Rick Hoffman, who is once again cast as an annoying-worm nemesis. Odds are Hoffman is as tired of playing these roles as we are of seeing him play them, but if he is going to continue to accept them, he's going to have to find some way to make the next look different from the last.

You might be willing to overlook the show's structural flaws if the cases themselves were wildly compelling, but unfortunately, they are of a piece with their misguided series.

There's little you haven't seen in a hundred other law shows, and far too little in the two episodes previewed that hinges on Mike's supposed special abilities. Which, of course, makes you wonder again about the decision to hire him.

They'd better fix that problem fast. Or the show's next new direction will be "off."

Suits
USA, Thursday 10 p.m. ET/PT
* ? (out of four)