'24: Legacy' clock starts right after Super Bowl

It's the curse of Fox's 24 sometimes to be more timely than it means to be.

The franchise that launched in 2001, two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, with a pilot episode from which an exploding airliner had to be edited out, returns Sunday after the Super Bowl -- and a turbulent week in U.S. affairs -- as 24: Legacy.

Look for a new hero, and an old enemy, as Corey Hawkins (Straight Outta Compton) makes his debut in the first hour of a two-night premiere as former Army Ranger Eric Carter, who'll be taking  up the formidable task of replacing Kiefer Sutherland's Jack Bauer as the One Guy Who Might Be Able to Stop the Terrorists Before They Strike.

Sutherland, an executive producer on Legacy who this season is fighting the terrorists who made him the accidental president on ABC's Designated Survivor, has long claimed that the real-time format, not Jack, is the beating heart of 24.  So if it's the classic countdown you've been missing since Sutherland's 2014 turn in 24: Live Another Day, prepare to be as comforted by Legacy as a puppy snuggling next to a ticking alarm clock.

But what if you've spent the week watching -- or protesting -- the news? You might not be thrilled to learn that Carter's troubles begin with what appears to be revenge for his team's killing of a terrorist leader in Yemen, in a raid that might sound a bit like the one in Yemen last weekend that cost a U.S. Navy SEAL his life. And that the threat of massive retaliation involves Islamic terrorists.

So much for escapist TV.

As impassive action heroes go, Hawkins is a fine successor to Sutherland. I rolled my eyes when 24: Legacy gave its African American lead an estranged brother, Isaac (Ashley Thomas), who's a drug kingpin, yet there's no denying that some of Jack's family members were probably much worse. (See James Cromwell and Philadelphia's Paul McCrane as Phillip and Graem Bauer, rich guys who trafficked in nerve gas and nuclear weapons.)

Isaac, whose former girlfriend, Nicole (Anna Diop), is now married to Eric (awkward!), may even prove useful.

Miranda Otto (Homeland) plays Rebecca Ingram, who's just stepped down as head of CTU, as the show calls its fictional counterterrorism unit, to accommodate the presidential run of her husband, Sen. John Donovan (Jimmy Smits). (Smits, who eventually got to be President Matt Santos in The West Wing, here plays a character whose late mother was Hispanic. Gerald McRaney, most recently seen as the kindly obstetrician in NBC's This Is Us, plays his father, Henry.)

Homeland fans may have trouble warming up to Otto here -- she knows what she did -- but I think we're meant to trust her, as much as we're meant to trust anyone in the betrayal-ridden 24 universe.

If I'm less enthusiastic than I was about the 24 pilot that premiered in November 2001, it's not Hawkins' fault. A lot of frenetic "days" have passed for 24 since then, and it's not as easy to be surprised when you assume the twists are coming.

At 12 episodes instead of 24, Legacy may be able to avoid some of the more absurd detours that plagued the original, but the formula remains the same: Technology is great, but human ingenuity tops it every time.

And the clock's always ticking.