Fox has been especially aggressive in this regard, seeing such commodities as the solution to a marketing problem. Like the network's adaptations of the movies "Lethal Weapon" and "The Exorcist," "24" and "Prison Break" came armed with a pre-sold audience and plenty of name recognition -- a benefit not to be sniffed at in an age of media abundance.

As with Fox's year-ago revival of "The X-Files," however, the actual product left much to be desired. And while each project's history played a role in drumming up media attention and viewer sampling, the results appeared blunted in part by, for many, creative disappointment after the initial rush.

The two current shows actually followed different blueprints. "24" sought to reboot the franchise with a new central figure, played by Corey Hawkins, offering some callbacks to the original (welcome back, Carlos Bernard as Tony Almeida) while essentially functioning as an origin story on the character's journey from war hero to counter-terrorism agent.

"Prison Break," by contrast, followed a model closer to Netflix's "Full House" and "The Gilmore Girls" revivals by reassembling the cast, thrusting them into a new adventure that quickly fell apart dramatically because of its silliness.