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Watch the nail-biting finale of suits – season 8 exclusively on Comedy Central
MUMBAI: Over the course of eight seasons, SUITS has established itself as one of the best legal drama shows to air on television. The gripping storyline complimented by exhilarating cases through the years have kept viewers hooked on to find out what lies ahead.
The finale of the series’ penultimate season is nearly here and fans couldn’t imagine a more thrilling climax to the season’s rollercoaster ride. Viewers can ‘Watch with the World’ the season 8 finale of SUITS at 12:00PM on Thursday, with a prime-time repeat on Saturday at 8:00PM only on Comedy Central!
Here’s how the season unfolded;
1) TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN – SAMANTHA WHEELER
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Following the departure of Mike Ross (Patrick J Adams) and Rachel Zane (Meghan Markle), the show witnessed the arrival of the most cutthroat lawyer in the city – Samantha Wheeler played by Katherine Heigl. Locking horns with Harvey, Louis and Donna all within the first week of joining the firm, will come Robert Zane's right-hand man, Samantha means business. Competing with Alex Williams for the honour of getting her name up the wall, she’s carved the reputation of a dependable ally and ferocious foe who no one wants to mess with.
2) THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN BETWEEN HARVEY SPECTER AND DANIEL HARDMAN
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Harvey Specter has his way of getting things done but is he a victim of his own approach this time? Having broken the attorney-client privilege by disclosing information, Harvey finds himself threatened by none other than arch-nemesis Daniel Hardman. The firm’s co-founder at a time when it was simply called Pearson Hardman is out to destroy the firm and seeks that Harvey be banished from practicing Law. Harvey has never lost against Hardman in the past but will that change with his mistake?
3) KATRINA AND BRIAN: SOMETIMES IT ISN’T HAPPILY EVER AFTER
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Episode 15 titled ‘Stalking Horse’ came as a major shocker for fans worldwide. The bonding between Katrina and Brian seemed to be only increasing and it was causing major problems for the latter’s marriage. Brian then decided it was time to leave the firm and left. The finale episode will finally reveal to us what is next for Katrina and whether there is a possibility of Brian returning? Fans have been rooting for this relationship, the finale hopefully will give us some insights
4) LOUIS LITT IS A CHANGED MAN
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Louis Litt earlier this season was held at gunpoint by Maurice and since then had trouble sleeping with nightmares of Maurice shooting his pregnant girlfriend. With support from Samantha, Louis was seen confronting the bully. It was a powerful moment. Yelling at the man that he wasn’t scared of him diminished the power the attacker was holding over Louis. Robert Zane had warned Samantha and Louis that things can take a bad turn and this would not be the end. Will this be the end or will Maurice retaliate? The finale will tell us more!
5) IS IT THE END OF DONNA AND THOMAS?
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Sometimes things are too good to be true and that’s exactly the scenario with Donna and Thomas. They soon became the favourite couple of viewers and fans were keen on a wedding! Harvey too approved of Thomas and went out of his way breaking certain rules to get Thomas a great business deal. Donna spilled the beans to Thomas who backed out of the deal in the right time but it doesn’t end there. Thomas looked rather upset that Donna knew about the complex nature of the deal and still went ahead with Harvey’s proposition? Their bond seemed to have hit a rough road and this maybe the end of it. Thomas feels Harvey and Donna have always confined in one another and he has no place in her life. Will Donna and Thomas end their relationship? Tune into Suits Season 8 Finale to know what happens.
UK: The aerial is losing its grip. As broadband becomes the default way Britons watch television, the UK is edging towards a decisive, and divisive, question: should Freeview be switched off by 2034? The issue, highlighted in reporting by The Guardian, has exposed deep fault lines over access, affordability and the future of public service broadcasting.
For nearly 25 years, Freeview has delivered free-to-air television from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 to almost every corner of the country. Even now, it remains the UK’s largest TV platform, used in more than 16m homes and on around 10m main household sets. Yet the same broadcasters that built it are now pressing for its closure within eight years.
Their case rests on a structural shift in viewing. Smart TVs, superfast broadband and the Netflix-led streaming boom have pulled audiences online. Advertising economics have followed. By 2034, the number of homes using Freeview as their main TV set is forecast to fall from a peak of almost 12m in 2012 to fewer than 2m, making digital terrestrial television, or DTT, increasingly costly to sustain.
But critics say the rush to switch off risks abandoning those least able, or least willing, to move online.
“I don’t want to be choosing apps and making new accounts,” says Lynette, 80, from Kent. “It is time-consuming and irritating trying to work out where I want to be, to remember the sequence of clicks, with hieroglyphics instead of words. If I make a mistake I have to start again.”
Lynette is among nearly 100,000 people who have signed a “save Freeview” petition launched by campaign group Silver Voices. She fears the government is about to “take [Freeview] away from me and others who either don’t like, can’t afford, or can’t use online versions”.
Official figures underline the fault lines. A report commissioned by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that by 2035, 1.8m homes will still depend on Freeview. Ofcom’s analysis shows those households are more likely to be disabled, older, living alone, female, and based in the north of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Freeview is owned by the public service broadcasters through Everyone TV, which also operates Freesat and the newer streaming platform Freely. After two years of review, DCMS is expected to set out its position soon, drawing on three options proposed by Ofcom: a costly upgrade of Freeview’s ageing technology; maintaining a bare-bones service with only core PSB channels; or a full switch-off during the 2030s.
The broadcasters have rallied behind the third option. They argue that 2034 is the logical cut-off, when transmission contracts with network operator Arqiva expire. By then, they say, the cost of broadcasting to a dwindling audience will far outweigh the returns from TV advertising.
Ofcom agrees a crunch point is approaching. In July, the regulator warned of a “tipping point” within the next few years, after which it will no longer be commercially viable for broadcasters to carry the costs of DTT.
Others see risks beyond economics. Questions remain over whether internet TV can reliably deliver emergency broadcasts, such as the daily Covid updates, in the way that universally available DTT can. The UK radio industry has also warned that an internet-only future for TV could push up distribution costs and force some radio stations off air if PSBs no longer share Arqiva’s mast network.
“It is a political hot potato,” says Dennis Reed, founder of Silver Voices, who says he has “dissociated” his organisation from the government’s stakeholder forum, which he believes is “heavily biased” towards streaming.
The Future TV Taskforce, representing the PSBs, counters that moving online could “close the digital divide once and for all”. “We want to be able to plan to ensure that no one is left behind,” a spokesperson says, adding that rising DTT costs could otherwise mean cuts to programme budgets.
The numbers show the scale of the challenge. Of the 1.8m Freeview-dependent homes projected for 2035, around 1.1m are expected to have broadband but not use it for TV. The remaining 700,000 are forecast to lack a broadband connection altogether.
Veterans of the analogue switch-off, completed in 2012 after 76 years, recall similar fears of “TV blackout chaos”. Around 6 per cent of households were labelled “digital refuseniks”, yet a targeted help scheme and a national campaign, fronted by a robot called Digit Al voiced by Matt Lucas, delivered a largely smooth transition.
This time, the BBC is less keen to foot the bill. Tim Davie, the outgoing director general, has said the corporation should not fund a comparable support programme for a Freeview switch-off.
Research for Sky by Oliver & Ohlbaum suggests that with early awareness campaigns and digital inclusion measures, only about 330,000 households would ultimately need hands-on help ahead of a 2034 shutdown.
Meanwhile, viewing habits continue to fragment. Audience body Barb says 7 per cent of UK households no longer own a TV set, choosing to watch on other devices. In December, YouTube overtook the BBC’s combined channels in total UK viewing across TVs, smartphones and tablets, albeit measured at a minimum of three minutes.
That shift may accelerate. YouTube has recently blocked Barb and its partner Kantar from accessing viewing session data, limiting transparency just as online platforms consolidate power.
“When the government chose British Satellite Broadcasting as the ‘winner’ in satellite TV it was Rupert Murdoch’s Sky instead that came out on top,” says a senior TV executive quoted by The Guardian. “There already is such an outsider ready to be the winner in the transition to internet TV; it is YouTube.”
Freeview’s future now hangs on a familiar British dilemma: modernise fast and risk exclusion, or protect universality and pay the price. Either way, the aerial’s days as king of the living room look numbered.
