Sleepy Hollow Season 2 (FOX)

The first season of Sleepy Hollow was one of my favourite new series of 2013. Mixing funny dialogue, an excellent chemistry between the lead cast and some excellent, bonkers plots that weren’t holding anything back, blending history with fantasy in several great ways over the course of the tightly plotted thirteen episodes runtime. It was compulsively addictive and ended on one of the best cliffhangers that you will quite possibly ever see on television, and given Fox’s habit for cancelling shows that have had excellent first seasons (Almost Human, Firefly) I was really glad to see that the show had earned another one. However, with the extended episode count, problems began to take ahold of Sleepy Hollow, as it adopted a more case-of-the-week based approach than before, sacrificing season-long arcs in favour of telling standalone stories that were often underwhelming (which was mandated by FOX, who never learn). The cast was still good (save for one notable exception), yes, and the start and end of the season was great, but on the whole, it was fairly disappointing especially given the rather weak take on one of the series major characters.

The first season ended with the revelation that Henry (John Noble) was in fact the son of Ichabod (Tom Mison) and Katrina (Katia Winter) and had been manipulating them the whole time and was in league with Moloch and the Headless Horseman. To make things more dramatic, just moments after Katrina had been freed from purgatory, which was the main goal of Season 1, she was given to the Horseman by Henry as part of their deal. And the rest of the team found themselves in complete jeopardy – Abbie (Nicole Beharie) was banished to purgatory, Captain Frank Irving (Orlando Jones) confessed to the murders of the police officer and a priest and was promptly arrested, Jenny (Lyndie Greenwood) fell victim to a car crash, and Ichabod was imprisoned, trapped in a wooden box beneath the ground with seemingly no chance of escaping. The biggest question was – how could they possibly resolve this? It seemed like the bad guys had won, but in the best possible way it seemed, Sleepy Hollow answered all of those questions, delivering a really strong premiere that was handled incredibly well.

However, it wasn’t long after that that things started to go downhill. Sleepy Hollow introduced the character Hawley (Matt Barr) in the third episode where he quickly became the most annoying character on the show, not really offering anything to his role. The show also unsuccessfully introduced Captain Irving’s replacement; Reyes (Sakina Jeffrey) who wasn’t fleshed out as well as she could have been, serving as a rather forgettable character. There were also various other standalone characters who failed to impress, such as the Angel Orion (Max Brown). But the biggest culprit of all was Katrina (Katia Winter), who was underwhelming for most of the season. This was partly because the strongest thing that the series had going for it was the chemistry between the two leads, Nicole Beharie and Tom Mison, and when Katrina was finally freed from the Horseman’s captivity, she only broke up that chemistry that had made the show so great, and wasn’t really given enough to do. The show tried to fix that with the final few episodes of the season, which whilst were still pretty good, felt that her arc was underdeveloped with her character making several choices that were out-of-character.

However, that’s not to say there were some good moments as well. The Nicole Beharie/Tom Mison chemistry was excellent as always and John Noble absolutely killed it in the role of Henry, with the revelation concerning his identity at the end of Season 1 gave him plenty to do this year, even though his end was somewhat anti-climatic.

With this show currently on the bubble, it’s not really certain whether or not we’ll see Season 3 just yet. I was kind of happy to let Sleepy Hollow go after several underwhelming episodes, but the two-part finale arc, which is certainly worth sticking around for if you’re put off by the lack of quality of some of the standalone episodes, really made up for it. The brief time-travel arc was among the best that the show has ever done, making use of a fantastic cliffhanger for the penultimate episode. (Thankfully, there wasn’t one in the finale, as it probably wouldn’t be able to Top Season 1’s). We also got to listen to an incredible violin cover of The Rolling Stones’ Sympathy for the Devil.

So despite quite a lot of flaws then, Sleepy Hollow Season 2 never really became unwatchable and whilst it lacked the sheer entertainment value of Season 1, I’d still rather watch another season of this than sit through mediocre, generic crime series (looking at you, ABC’s Secrets and Lies). Because when Sleepy Hollow gets it right, it gets it very right indeed.

VERDICT: 7.5/10

Sleepy Hollow Season 1 (Fox)

 

I ranked Sleepy Hollow as one of the best new series of 2013 at the end of the year and I believe it is fully justified in being up there with the likes of Orphan Black, House of Cards, Peaky Blinders and The Blacklist. It’s just a great piece of TV entertainment that blends action, conspiracy thriller, horror and even odd moments of comedy together pretty well with a great overarching mystery that keeps the show very entertaining to watch. It’s fast moving and with the thirteen episodes that we have on offer there never feels like any episode that’s a waste of time – despite the occasional slip into monster of the week formula that plagues most shows in its early seasons.

Tom Mison’s Ichabod Crane is a turncoat in the Revolutionary War, fighting alongside the Americans after abandoning the British. This leads Crane to a direct confrontation with a British Mercenary whilst on a mission for George Washington, where he and the Mercenary are wounded in mortal combat. Crane wakes up several hundred years in the present day – in a town named Sleepy Hollow. It’s a modern day take on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and sees Crane teaming up with Nicole Behari’s Abbie Mills, a Police Officer with a buried past, as they work together to stop the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse including the return of the Mercenary, who is essentially Death. The premise alone is what makes Sleepy Hollow very risky for mainstream TV audience – but as it’s been renewed for a second season people who are catching up on the series do not have to worry about losing another awesome show on FOX when they canned Firefly too early.

The show’s cast is pretty well chosen. Our window into the supernatural world, Nicole Behari’s Abbie Mills, is a kickass character with some great chemistry with Mison’s Ichabod Crane. In fact, the chemistry between Behari and Mison is probably the main reason that most people will stick around watching this show – they are incredibly strong lead actors and work extremely well together. The supporting cast are equally great as well and there aren’t any poorly casted recurring actors/actresses in the whole show – something that really enhances the overall feel of the show and when the plotlines may tread into predictable monster of the week storylines, you can always count the lead actors to keep you entertained. Orlando Jones plays Captain Irving and is Ichabod and Abbie’s main ally in the Police – his name also being a nod to the creator of the original series, and he undergoes great character development in the show and is one of the more awesome parts of it. One of the many highlights that Jones has in the show is actually being the first officer in a horror TV show to actually call for backup before entering a hostile and not end up killed – something that works really well in the episode that it features.

As well as Behari, Jones and Mison, there are several other actors who play a key role in Sleepy Hollow. Katie Winter is unfortunately reduced to a damsel in distress for most of the series as Ichabod Crane’s wife, but then there isn’t much Katrina can do when she’s trapped in Purgatory. Lyndie Greenwood also puts on a strong performance as Abbie’s sister, Jenny Mills – whose character arc is great to watch as we learn that the sisters have a hidden past with a subplot that is explored a lot over the show as it continues. Two other major standouts  who don’t crop up every episode unlike the majority of the actors who I’ve already mentioned are Clancy Brown as Abbie’s mentor Augustus Corbin, and the fantastic John Noble as Henry Parish, the Sin Eater, who gets a fantastic role in the show and delivers some of the greatest moments.

For the most part, Sleepy Hollow is a lot of fun, and I think that’s the best word to describe this series. There are a few problems that can be expected from a show such as this but one of the best parts is that the overall storyline never is predictable (although the monster of the week episodes often are) and the cliffhanger is quite possibly one of the most memorable season finale cliffhangers that I have ever seen – putting the Cranes, the Mills and Irving in a situation that looks as impossible to get out of as Doctor Who’s Season 5 episode The Pandorica Opens – however the only difference here is that it is even more challenging due to the lack of the Doctor involved. It certainly makes the wait for Season 2 seem even longer and the decision to keep the show at 13 episodes as opposed to 20-odd really paid off, as it allowed for concise and quality storytelling even if most monster of the week episodes are forgettable.

Witty, funny and incredibly exciting with some great moments of horror in the entire series, Sleepy Hollow should be you must watch fantasy series from 2013. In fact, it’s probably the best new Fantasy series that I’ve seen this year – and is a modernization of a classic that actually works thanks to some great casting choices and a great overall plot, with a memorable cliffhanger to boot. You can certainly count me in for Season 2 and I’m really looking forward to seeing where this show goes.

VERDICT: 7/10