Is Meghan Markle's Suits the TV show of the summer?

There's something about Meghan. Or something about Suits. Or both. Suits is enjoying enormous success on Netflix and Peacock, holding court in the US Netflix Top 10 since June. Now, the series has achieved another milestone after achieving its fourth consecutive week with more than 3 billion minutes of watch time.

Suits racked up over 3.88 billion minutes of viewing during the week of July 17-23, putting it in the top spot on the Nielsen streaming chart for acquired series. Coming in at a distant second place is the animated family series Bluey with 1.22 billion minutes, followed by NCIS in third place with 741 million minutes.

If you're not familiar with the series, Suits ran for nine seasons from 2011 to 2019. It's the story of a college dropout who goes from being on the run to working for a top legal firm, and all of the drama that comes with it. The series starred Gabriel Macht, Patrick J. Adams, Sarah Rafferty, Gina Torres and Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex. Markle famously started dating Prince Harry during her time on the series and several costars attended her lavish royal wedding.

Given that some time has passed since the show ended its run on the USA Network in 2019, the show's surging popularity is something of an anomaly. While binging older series is nothing new and is certainly a hallmark of Netflix in its early days, the fact that Suits has amassed over 3 billion viewing minutes weekly for the past four weeks is extraordinary.

Is it that fans are staying away from the summer heat by camping out in front of the television in a nice, air conditioned room? Is it that viewers who never watched the show during its initial run are finally taking the time to binge the series while it's available to stream? Are fans catching up on seasons they missed? Are casual viewers curious about the series because of its ties to the Duchess of Sussex? There are no immediate answers, but it's very likely that it's some combination of all these possibilities.

We don't know when Suits will be leaving Netflix, so if you haven't had a chance to check it out, now's the perfect time to do so before it leaves the library. Suits is also available to stream on Peacock.