Creator Aaron Korsh talks to ET about the long-running legal drama's new look.
As season six kicks off, USA Network’s long-running legal drama, Suits, is turning a new leaf.
The new run of episodes begins with Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) acclimating to his new reality as a prison inmate after the truth about his lack of a law degree surfaces, threatening the livelihood of the firm, Pearson Specter Litt, and those who kept quiet about his secret -- most notably Harvey Specter (Gabriel Macht).
RELATED: 'Suits' Star Patrick J. Adams Talks Game-Changing Season 5 Finale
“With Mike in prison, it is certainly a new era in the show,” creator Aaron Korsh told ET of the new season during a recent interview. “But it was more my goal to make it feel like the same show.”
All the familiar elements that make Suits what it is still remain, though the new season has its own unique test: striking a balance between Mike’s prison storyline with everyone else’s at the firm, while still maintaining a connective thread between the two worlds.
“Our characters talk about Mike and Mike talks about our characters but that’s what they’d be doing: thinking about each other and that is a form of interaction,” Korsh said. “If fans have a yearning for them to be together, the characters are expressing that yearning to be together.”
RELATED: Is Donna Rethinking Her Future With Harvey? Sarah Rafferty Tells All
“Moving forward, the challenge was to feel like Mike is not completely separate from our characters. That’s why we came up with the idea of Mike being in prison with someone that Harvey put away. Obviously Harvey’s going to hear about that and find out about it and it’s going to involve him in Mike’s life,” he explained.
Though Mike won’t be getting out of prison anytime soon -- Korsh says he’ll be behind bars for “a big part of the season” -- there will come a time when he’ll find his way out eventually. “I don’t think I’ll have Mike in prison for two full seasons,” he deadpanned.
RELATED: 'Suits' Sneak Peek: Is Louis Stealing Harvey's Clients Away?
As Korsh tells it, the timing seemed right for Mike to finally get caught in his lie. After five seasons of skirting around the issue, taking the plunge now only seemed fitting in moving the story along and positioning the characters in unknown -- and potentially more dangerous -- territory.
“You have to evolve the show or it’s going to get stale for me as a writer and probably for the actors too. I’m sure some people would prefer it stay the same forever and some people appreciate the changes,” Korsh said. “If you do the same thing over and over again, I would, by definition, lose interest and I would feel it was unsuccessful. But when you make changes and evolve the show, you’re always risking alienating or turning off some people.”
Suits airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on USA Network.