Sleepy Hollow was the best new series to launch in 2013. I suppose
that wasn’t too hard when the main competition was ABC’S Marvel’s Agents of
S.H.I.E.L.D., a show which was forced to wait 16 episodes before it was allowed
to get into the meat of its premise (there will be more complaints about Agents
of SHIELD in another post later, don’t worry). If you’d asked anyone a year
ago, they would have written off a show based upon a 19th century
Gothic novel involving a headless horseman, all transposed into modern day
upstate New York where he partners with a small town cop to save the world.
It’s impossible to describe the show without appending “But it’s all really
good!” at the end, as the person you’re attempting to convert rolls their eyes
at the idea that “George Washington’s Bible is really important”.
But it is really good, and it’s
difficult to explain to the sceptical exactly what makes it so good. The only
phrase that really explains why the show is worth watching is that it’s batshit
insane with fantastic internal logic. The show runs at breakneck speed through
a variety of completely ludicrous set ups and internal machinations and for 40
minutes you sit transfixed, agreeing fully with everything it’s told you. It’s
only 5 minutes later when you’ve calmed down from the excitement that you start
questioning anything, but it’s important to push any doubts out of your mind
because they just ruin the experience.
So what’s the basic premise of
the show? It’s hard to summarise, but I’m willing to give it a go. Ichabod Crane,
an 18th century Oxford scholar has joined the Americans in the
American Revolution with the aim of freeing the colonies from British rule. The
British, because this is American media and they have a national mythology to
preserve, are conspiring with the dark forces of Hell to hand the world over to
some powerful demon. Crane kills the Headless Horseman who is Death, but is
himself also killed by said horseman. His wife, who is a witch, magically
preserves him and he is buried in cave, ready to awaken when the Horseman does,
which happens, obviously. He meets Lt. Abbie Mills of the Sleepy Hollow
sheriff’s department, whose mentor has just been killed by the Headless
Horseman. They then become a wonder team of brilliant rapport and a model
platonic male/female duo. The lack of any hints of romance between them is
really what sets this show above the rest. They are now the protectors of the
Earth from the evil that exists just beyond our own world. There you go, that’s
your basic premise.
Except there’s a thousand more
things going on just in the first episode. It’s really impossible to explain
fully what’s going on. It’s easier to give three reasons why you should be
watching.
The relationship between Abbie
and Ichabod is the best I’ve seen on TV in a long while. It’s a man and a woman
having an effective working relationship that develops into a close friendship
and doesn’t then go on to be anything romantic. This is unbelievably refreshing
and a welcome relief from the constant sexual tension writers insist on forcing
into their scripts. You don’t spend that show wondering if they’re going to
sleep together, you can just enjoy a purely platonic relationship between two
people. You just have to ignore the rabid shippers, but that’s a phrase that
can be added to discussions about basically any show.
The show moves along at quite a
pace. There are few episodes in season one that don’t have any significant
action happening until the final act, and that is one of my bugbears when it
comes to TV. But in general, the show isn’t afraid to hang around, it’ll just
keep on moving forwards, and that’s a good thing for a show that is so heavy on
mythology. It can introduce and explain each new addition to its universe
without bogging the show down.
The mythology the show is
building is one of its main strong points if you’re a massive nerd who likes a
convoluted backstory. There’s freemasons, hessians, demons from hell, secret
demon hunters, time travelling early colonisers and more. The show is partly
engaging in the ‘monster of the week’ style of Buffy, Supernatural and shows of
that ilk, but it keeps everything coherent and everything you see is important
to the greater storyline, sometimes not in ways you expect. Again, this is
something you want, it’s rewarding for viewers who have been paying attention
throughout its run.
So there are three quick reasons
off the top of my head. But really, the phrase “The answers are in George
Washington’s bible!” should be enough to make you drop everything and rush to
watch this show.
UPDATE: I stopped watching this show because it got dull. Whoopsies
