Real revolution doesn’t sell to the network suits. What does? Old hits’ formulas, remixed.

"HEROES" | This season s breakout hit on NBC about superpowered individuals who may have to save the world (with a large, diverse ensemble including Masi Oka, above, who can stop time), the show mixes elements of "Lost," with comic books and "Misfits of Science," also by executive producer Tim Kring. (NBC)

In television, imitation is the sincerest form of programming. That axiom, as old as the medium itself, is true no matter how mysterious, cinematic or above-average this year’s crop of newcomers might be.

Producers can play with flashbacks, write intricate back stories for each character and serialize stories to heighten suspense, but there are only so many combinations of ingredients that regularly cook up into a hit.

New TV series are sold in concept form by blending bits of what has worked in the past. In this sense, "derivative" isn’t considered a pejorative so much as an honest descriptor. Pitching a new idea as a combination of used parts is simply the preferred shorthand. Creator Joss Whedon famously described "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" as "’My So-Called Life’ meets ’The X-Files."’

Sometimes TV borrows gently and creatively, other times it rips. To wit: "CSI" is "Quincy" plus long zoom shots. "Ghost Whisperer" is "Joan of Arcadia" minus the smarts, plus "Medium."

Similarly, "Grey’s Anatomy" is "ER" meets "Scrubs," with detractors claiming the "Scrubs" elements were too nearly lifted.

"Prison Break" is "The Fugitive" plus HBO’s "Oz" minus the R-rating.

"Veronica Mars" is Nancy Drew plus "The Gilmore Girls" with a father-daughter twist.

ABC’s soapy "Brothers & Sisters" is "thirtysomething" plus "Desperate Housewives" plus Sally Field.

Sometimes picking shows this way works for the networks; sometimes it fails spectacularly.

Math doesn’t equal magic

Smith," the first cancellation of the current season, was supposed to be a mashup of "Miami Vice" and "Heat," with a sprinkling of the more recent "Heist" and "Thief." Viewers recognized immediately that, in spite of some nifty explosion effects, the result was less than the sum of its parts.

Other notable misses: "Wonder Years" plus slacker culture combined to equal the Rob Corddry loser, "The Winner" on Fox. Even though "slacker" was the buzz word of the moment, the show amounted to less than zero.

The reason everything old is new again is obvious. Network television is a high-stakes game in which the players are notoriously risk-averse. By basing every new gamble on what’s worked before, executives seek to improve their chances, or at least diminish the industry’s long odds in favor of failure.

If a producer pitches a personal, creative idea with no assurance that it falls neatly into a familiar category with known attributes, it’s likely to leave the network suits cold. Unless they can picture something similar, it’s an unknown quantity, always more likely to fail than to succeed. Unless the programmers have quasi-scientific statistics and can check the research and see what "tested well" with focus groups, they’re afraid to bank on the new idea.

Tell them which parts of previous hits you plan to mimic and you’re halfway there.

Similarly, even once a show gets on the air, network programmers are prone to bombard the producers with helpful notes, along the lines of "make this fluffy like ’Desperate Housewives"’ or "make the cast a demographic mix more like ’Lost."’

Setting the bar higher

The trick is to be clever, but not too clever. Think out of the box, but stay within the lines of what the bosses recognize as last year’s success.

That’s A continuing star performer on ABC (starring Patrick Dempsey and Ellen Pompeo), Grey s Anatomy combines aspects of the hospital drama "ER," the hospital comedy "Scrubs" and the sexy sudser "Melrose Place." (ABC) the eternal challenge of commercial entertainment television: find a way to be inventive but not inaccessible. Make your show novel, but not so fresh that millions and millions of Americans, many of them barely paying attention, can’t follow.

Once in a great while, a TV pilot comes along that looks like nothing you’ve ever seen on the small screen. Michael Mann’s "Miami Vice" was just such a game-changer. More recently, J.J. Abrams’ "Lost," with its $14 million two-hour pilot, set the bar higher than ever for cinematic television that looks as good as a feature film.

But even these eye-popping originals were talked about as a blend of known quantities: "Miami Vice" was famously born of Brandon Tartikoff’s scrawl on a cocktail napkin, "MTV cops."

And "Lost" was initially telegraphed as "X-Files" meets "Gilligan’s Island."

Until something really reinvents the system - interactive play in virtual worlds online, perhaps? - television will do what it always does. Send in the clones.