“Suits LA” may take place in polished glass-paned offices with lawyers wearing suits (or form-fitting pencil skirts, à la Meghan Markle as Rachel Zane), but that’s about its only similarity to “Suits,” USA Network’s show that premiered more than a decade ago.

When all nine seasons of the original dropped on Netflix, “Suits” became the most-streamed show of 2023, expanding its fan base and eventually renewing enough interest to spawn NBC’s new Sunday night spin-off starring Stephen Amell as Ted Black. However, while referring to “Suits LA” as a spin-off of “Suits” may be categorically true, it feels like a generous mischaracterization.

The show is a mess. It’s taken the worst part of “Suits” — the inter-office battles for control of “the firm,” the too-serious, brow-furrowed conversations about said firm, and the overwrought competition between that same firm’s employees — and utterly failed to capture any of the original and quirky elements that made “Suits” so fun to watch.

“Suits” was one of USA Network’s last successful scripted shows. Like its predecessors, “Monk,” “Psych” and “Burn Notice,” it was a procedural with a twist. The setting was a law office, but it wasn’t “The Good Wife”— the other major legal procedural of that era that was a pure drama. Instead, “Suits” straddled the border between drama and comedy because of its premise and lower-stake legal cases.

The show centers on Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht), an arrogant lawyer in New York. The pilot begins when he accidentally meets Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams), a college dropout with a photographic memory, as his newest associate at the firm even though Mike doesn’t have a law degree (but he has taken the LSAT and bar exam countless times for other people to make extra money).

The premise was fresh, and the back-and-forth chemistry between Harvey and Mike made them a duo you wanted to watch. Both actors also had on-screen charisma that made you root for them even though almost everything they did was illegal (again, Mike was offering counsel without a law degree). Also, the slow burn will-they-won’t-they between Harvey and his secretary Donna (Sarah Rafferty) and the eventual relationship between Mike and Rachel gave the show the perfect amount of emotional grounding, so it became about more than the office politics of a law firm.

The pilot of “Suits LA” has none of these elements. It opens with what is eventually revealed to be a nightmare. Ted is dreaming about what happened 15 years ago in New York when he was working on a mob case that went so wrong it led to an explosion, the death of a key witness and a questionable, possibly career-ending legal tactic.

I fear that description makes the show sound more interesting than it is. The nightmare is not only a strange choice to begin a pilot, but also flat. Ted wakes from the nightmare, but instead of viewers understanding his personal emotional stakes, his anxiety just emphasizes the overacting that plagues the entire show.

This shortfall is best exemplified when Ted arrives at the firm and interacts with character after character without enough context to make their interactions meaningful. There’s Rick (Bryan Greenberg), who is positioned as his protégé, or at least competing with Erica (Lex Scott Davis) for that position. They are also competing for the position of head of entertainment. Neither of them have the chemistry that Mike has with Harvey, and nothing about their personal lives is revealed to make you care about their goals.

Then, there’s Stuart (Josh McDermitt), the other owner, who is possibly supposed to be the Louis (Rick Hoffman) of the show but isn’t nearly as fun to watch as Louis is in “Suits.” (However, the closest “Suits LA” gets to “Suits” is when Ted makes a “doodoo” joke.) Ted does have a secretary, Rosalyn (Azita Ghanizada), who tries to offer him some Donna-style advice, but they don’t have any chemistry and their dynamic isn’t compelling.

Then, there are references to Samantha (Rachelle Goulding) and Kevin (Troy Winbush), people from Ted’s previous life in New York who are mentioned as if they are important. They do appear in flashbacks and eventually at the end of the episode, but their addition to the show only highlights the low quality of the writing because Ted’s conversations with both read like something written by AI.

Honestly, most of the show reads like something written by AI. Ted’s defining character trait is the wound he has from his relationship with his father, who I forgot to mention is also in hospice and dying. John Amos gives his last onscreen performance before his death in August as himself, seeking help to get a role while also offering Ted unsolicited advice about addressing his trauma with his father. Unfortunately, the scene is just one more in the string of unexplained interactions that viewers are told carry meaning but appear on-screen as meaningless.

If everything that happens in the first episode had been developed and fleshed out to fill an entire season and to give the characters time to develop, the show could have potential as a legal drama. However, without the quirkiness of a premise that is as unique as Mike working as an associate without a law degree, the show is a flat jumble of characters and plots that are more disappointing than anything else.

One of my greatest criticisms of “Suits” is that I eventually got tired of the plot being driven by what was good for “the firm” or who was controlling “the firm” (who cares?). “Suits LA” takes that thread and runs with it, making the show solely about the firm and Ted’s trauma (again, who cares?). Ultimately, “Suits LA” does a disservice to the “Suits” franchise. Instead of watching it, it just makes me want to rewatch the original.