How do you keep a TV serial going past its fourth season?

You reinvent, or you repeat. You find a new story, or you bring back old reliable villains who seemed to have been written off.

The Donald J. Trump re-election kickoff rally Tuesday, at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla., was an attempt to recreate the media-dominating phenomenon of four years ago. Like many an ongoing series later in its run, it was a bigger-budget operation, the production more lavish, the set physically larger.

But, filled with callbacks, fan favorites and references to moments from its first season, it was more rerun than re-imagination.

Mr. Trump’s 2016-campaign announcement, four years ago, was full of imagery to remind people of his long celebrity career. He was backed by the pink marble of Trump Tower, the site of so many of his ’80s photo shoots; he glided down its escalator in an image familiar from “The Apprentice.”