What May Cause 24: Legacy to be a Hit?
The 24 name
24 ran for eight seasons, and then had a reboot in 2014, 24: Live Another Day. It is a popular series, as evidenced by the 1.87 million trailer views it had when I checked earlier this week, as compared to the 510,000-580,000 of the other winter FOX new shows. With over three times the trailer views, people are definitely interested in 24: Legacy.
Post-Superbowl airing
In addition to the built-in interest from the 24 name, 24: Legacy will get a chance to prove itself to viewers in the best possible way, airing after the Super Bowl. Americans love their football, and it shows when the Super Bowl is consistently the highest rated event on television each year. 24: Legacy is the lucky recipient of that lead-in this year, and that lead-in rarely goes to shows that end up not performing well.
Lack of compatible competition
ABC will be airing The Bachelor and later Dancing with the Stars up against 24: Legacy, and NBC will be going with The Apprentice then The Voice. Neither of these two networks are airing shows that would go after much of the same audience. CBS as well isn't airing very compatible competition, with comedies Kevin Can Wait and Man with a Plan. The competition from the CW is probably the most similar on broadcast, and even then I don't think Supergirl would be stealing many viewers from 24: Legacy.
What May Cause 24: Legacy to be a Miss for FOX?
No Kiefer Sutherland
While this show has the 24 name, many fans of the original series must wonder how this can be 24 without Kiefer Sutherland, who is now over at Designated Survivor, as the lead. This is probably the reason that only 68% of people who chose like or dislike on the official trailer chose like, compared to 91-92% for the other FOX winter new shows.
Lack of real success with 24: Live Another Day
In 2014, FOX rebooted 24 with Kiefer Sutherland in 24: Live Another Day. The reboot, which premiered in early May, started out with a 2.6 rating, which would be a 1.7 in 2017 ratings. FOX would love this, however it hit 1.5 by week 4, which would be 1.0 today, and settled at 1.4, which would be 0.9 today. These ratings would be fine today, but not if they went much lower, which they very well could without Kiefer.
Reboot failure in general
Remember how well Heroes: Reborn did last fall? You don't? Well, it performed well at the start, but fell from there, kind of like 24: Live Another Day as I just mentioned. In addition, other reboots such as The Muppets, The Odd Couple, Charlie's Angels, V, and Melrose Place failed, with The Odd Couple being the most successful of these now in its third season and highly unlikely to return. Reboots Hawaii Five-0, and 90210 ended up lasting, and MacGyver looks like it can, and reboots Beauty and the Beast and Nikita fell somewhere in between, but it seems much more likely that 24: Legacy would follow a Heroes: Reborn path rather than a Hawaii Five-0 path.
What to Expect for 24: Legacy?
It would be surprising to not see it perform well in its first couple of episodes, but after that it is much harder to say. I think it will end up around the low end of being a bubble show.
What factors do you think will cause 24: Legacy to be a hit or a miss? Leave your thoughts in the comments!