There is also the ongoing mystery of why Crane doesn't change his clothes after sleeping in them for 250 years. Mills, mourning the recent decapitation of her sheriff mentor (Clancy Brown, the deep-voiced, deeply evil Kurgan from Highlander cast in a brief but winningly avuncular role), has to get her head round this new, potentially apocalyptic reality, reconnect with her sectioned sister and somehow also keep her grumpy new boss (Orlando Jones) onside. Crane's deductive reasoning, knowledge of the arcane and dream-chats with his limbo-imprisoned witch-wife prove invaluable, even while he struggles with concepts such as indoor plumbing, voicemail and electric car windows. Thanks to his smoking hot red-haired Quaker witch of a wife, Crane awakens from a 250-year cryosleep to discover the local hamlet of Sleepy Hollow is the crucible for a biblical apocalypse – in the show's boldest, goofiest narrative stroke, the Hessian he managed to decapitate before expiring is one of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and he's back with a vengeance.Ĭrane teams up with Lt Mills, a typically no-nonsense cop with some supernatural chicanery in her past, and the two lurch from crisis to propulsive crisis, foiling the forces of evil without ever really getting that much of a handle on what they're doing. This version of Crane is a disillusioned British officer who teamed up with George Washington during the American Revolution, only to be slain by a Bane-like Hessian mercenary on the battlefield. And with so much wackadoodle plot being burned through on the screen, the fact that Sleepy Hollow is one of the few TV shows with a black female lead seems comparatively unremarkable. But all the vision quests, decapitations, artefact hunts and resurrections would count for naught were it not for the relationship at the heart of the show: the shining thread linking Crane (posh English stage veteran Tom Mison) and Lieutenant Abigail Mills (the persuasive Nicole Beharie). And in truth, there is an awful lot going on, including the memorable sight of a cheerfully unkillable Headless Horseman galloping around modern-day Sleepy Hollow with a flaming battleaxe and an assault rifle. That may make it sound like there's a lot going on. Put simply, it's a surprisingly effective combination of The X-Files, Moonlighting, Sharpe, Sherlock, the National Treasure franchise, Terminator and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Highlander thrown in for good measure. But it is well worth tracking down if you like macabre horror, fish-out-of-water humour, alternative history mysteries, supernatural drama, period drama, police procedural drama, apocalyptic drama, monsters, violence, and smoking hot red-haired Quaker witches and/or dashing, scrupulously mannered men in breeches and musty greatcoats, who speak in sexily antiquated English. In the UK, it remains more of a dark horse, tucked away on the Universal Channel on Wednesday nights. #SLEEPY HOLLOW TV SERIES SERIES#Yet after the first few furlongs of the season, Sleepy Hollow has turned out to be a hit for the Fox network, well-received by critics, clamoured over by obsessive viewers and already the winner of the greatest prize of all: a second series commission. It also sounded like Grimm, one of many minor shows with a fantasy/folklore flavour chasing after the ratings of fairytale megahit Once Upon a Time. The concept of transposing 18th-century fusspot Ichabod Crane and his spooky nemesis the Headless Horseman into the 21st century just sounded grim. In the US, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a venerable set text with in-built brand recognition on this side of the Atlantic, it's probably most familiar as a minor Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie. Of 2013's fresh batch of TV runners and riders – mostly diluted or recycled versions of thoroughbreds past – Sleepy Hollow looked spectacularly unpromising: an attempt to fashion a police procedural out of elements lifted from Washington Irving's classic short story. These untested young colts are corralled into a ratings steeplechase that rapidly turns into a slaughterhouse. It seems appropriate when applied to the galloping herd of TV shows that traditionally make their debuts during the season of turning leaves and spiced lattes.
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