Robert Downey Jr. & Lucy Liu’s 5-Part Version Of Suits Deserves To Be Revisited

Published Oct 10, 2026, 3:45 PM EDT Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel. Before there was Suits, there was another legal drama that fit the same mold, a five-season comedy drama with a fantastic cast, including Robert Downey Jr. and Lucy Liu. Love it or hate it, Suits is one of the biggest streaming successes, a showcase of what can happen when an old show gets brought onto a streaming page. Suits premiered in 2011 on the USA Network and was watched enough that it ran for nine seasons, but it wasn't until it debuted on Netflix and Peacock in 2023 that it really exploded in popularity. It's not hard to see why. It's a fun, breezy, engrossing drama that knows its audience. It's a lot like 1997's Ally McBeal in that regard. Ally McBeal starred Calista Flockhart as the titular character, and the show ran for five seasons and over 100 episodes, coming to an end in 2022. Ally is a Boston lawyer who has just gotten a new job at Cage & Fish, a legal firm run by an old classmate. Among the many employees there is Ally's old boyfriend, Billy Thomas (Gil Bellows), a situation made worse by the sexually charged atmosphere of Cage & Fish. Everyone seems to either be dating, sleeping with, or at least flirting with someone else at Cage & Fish; it's free-spirited, symbolized by the unisex bathroom (it was the '90s). Lucy Liu and RDJ were joined by the likes of Courtney Thorne-Smith, Jane Krakowski, Portia de Rossi, Regina Hall, Julianne Nicholson, James Marsden, Hayden Panettiere, Greg Germann, and more, making for a star-studded series that deserves to be reinvigorated the way Suits was. David E. Kelley’s Ally McBeal Is The ’90s Version Of Suits Among TV Legal Dramas Ally McBeal was basically the '90s version of Suits. Like Suits, the actual legal proceedings of the show were not the most complicated or particularly riveting; it's the relationships between the characters that keep viewers coming back. Ally McBeal takes on a more sitcom-y tone, with fantastical dream sequences and running gags, however. Both shows have a loose understanding of the legal system as well, and neither should be counted on for accurate court sequences. Again, that's not really what either is going for. Ally McBeal and Suits want dashing characters, at the top of their game, vying for one another's attention and affection even more than they vie for clients. Ally McBeal Deserves More Than Its 61% Score On Rotten Tomatoes MovieStillsDB Ally McBeal only has a 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it had an impressive awards streak, with nominations and wins at both the Golden Globes and Emmy Award ceremonies. The show deserves more than a 61%, though. A big issue for a lot of viewers was the show's quick decline after season 3. There is definitely a quality drop-off after that season, but it's not so bad as to tank the rest of the show. Some viewers took umbrage with Ally herself, suggesting she was not a particularly great feminine icon, but the show was never reaching for anything so prestigious. Ally McBeal is a good, solid TV show, the kind we don't always get anymore, where shows are either canceled after a season or are big prestige fare. Ally McBeal is a simple show with a simple premise, and it executes, and sometimes that gets to be celebrated. Release Date 1997 - 2002-00-00 Network FOX Showrunner David E. Kelley Directors David E. Kelley Writers David E. Kelley