LOS ANGELES – In 2014, I flew to Toronto, Canada, to visit the set of the American legal drama Suits and interview its cast for The Straits Times.

One of those I spoke to was an up-and-coming American actress named Meghan Markle, who played Rachel, the office paralegal and love interest of renegade lawyer Mike (Patrick J. Adams).

Markle was effusively charming: She complimented me on my questions, offered tips on places to eat in Toronto, and lit up when asked about her mixed-race background and the show’s progressive casting.

“I meet a lot of parents of biracial kids who go, ‘Finally, there’s a role model who looks like us’,” said the then 32-year-old, who is half-white and half-African American.

“That part thrills me. I’m really grateful to have colour-blind casting.”

Then in its third year, Suits had a loyal fan base and solid viewership ratings, making it a flagship title on the USA Network, a cable channel in the United States.

But at no point in its 2011 to 2019 run did the show win any major awards or become a giant hit.

So, just as no one could have predicted that Markle, now 42, would go on to marry Britain’s Prince Harry, 39, and become one of the most controversial and famous women in the world, no one expected her quippy law-office procedural to become a television phenomenon well after it went off the air.

But that is what a new report by media research firm Nielsen has revealed, with Suits – which was added to Netflix in 2023 – the unlikely winner of the title of 2023’s most-streamed series in the US according to total minutes viewed (57.7 billion).

That put it well ahead of streaming platforms’ newer and more heavily promoted original series, the most viewed of which was Apple TV+’s Emmy-winning sports comedy-drama Ted Lasso (2020 to present), with 16.9 billion minutes.

The “total minutes viewed” metric confers an advantage on long-running series with more or lengthier episodes.

But Suits’ 134 episodes still managed to top the military police procedural NCIS (2003 to present), whose 443 episodes captured eyeballs for 39.4 billion minutes, and medical drama Grey’s Anatomy (2005 to present), whose 421 episodes chalked up 38.6 billion minutes.

It also bested comedy favourites The Big Bang Theory (2007 to 2019), Gilmore Girls (2000 to 2007) and Friends (1994 to 2004), which all enjoyed far more fanfare when they first aired.

And it cracked the previous streaming record set by the acclaimed workplace comedy The Office (2005 to 2013), which was watched for 57.1 billion minutes in 2020, the year of pandemic lockdowns.

What explains Suits’ runaway success?

The series certainly has stellar ratings on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, where four of its nine seasons have a 100 per cent Tomatometer rating.

Fans and critics agree that it is a well-crafted and very bingeable watch, with lots of wit, drama, sexual tension and larger-than-life personalities.

All this makes it an ideal candidate for the so-called “Netflix effect”, which sees older shows licensed to the streamer finding a whole new audience and a second wind.

And it does not hurt that Markle happens to be one of the most high-profile and divisive women in the world because of her marriage to Prince Harry and their very public rift with his family – reignited in 2023 with the publication of his tell-all memoir Spare.

Even if one believes the gleeful reports of a supposed backlash against the couple, there is far less animus towards them in the US compared with Britain.

So one can imagine a streaming subscriber being curious enough to click on her old show – and becoming a fan.

• Suits is available on Netflix.