Several weeks ago, AMC premiered a new drama in the coveted time slot
immediately following Breaking Bad,
hoping to snare Walter White’s legions of fans: Low Winter Sun, a gritty cop drama set in decaying Detroit. Unlike The Shield, however, another gritty cop
drama, Low Winter Sun’s protagonists
aren’t just morally compromised – they’re flat-out bad. Every character is unsympathetic;
it’s impossible to care about them. I gave up on the relentlessly humorless series
after a few episodes – just in time to start enjoying a show that is its polar
opposite: the unabashedly lively, entertaining Sleepy Hollow.
Fox’s new fantasy drama series begins with the unique premise that Ichabod
Crane, the protagonist of Washington Irving’s 1820 short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, has been
mystically transported forward in time to contemporary Sleepy Hollow, New York.
Unfortunately, so has a version of Irving’s Headless Horseman, here reimagined
as a demonic killing machine, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
described in the Biblical book of Revelation.
The show’s creators have revamped Crane too, as a British soldier who accepted
the rightness of the American patriots’ fight for independence from the King and
switched sides. He was actually carrying out a spy mission for Gen. George
Washington before awakening in 2013 and finding himself suspected in the beheading
of the local sheriff at the hands of the fearsome Horseman. Police Lt. Abbie
Mills, investigating her mentor’s gruesome murder, takes a chance on partnering
with the suspect Crane to solve the supernatural mystery and to take on the dark
forces that seem to have been unleashed in her formerly sleepy corner of the world.
Unrelenting suspension of disbelief is a requirement for viewing this almost
comically fast-paced series, which is stuffed to the gills with supernatural
phenomenon: witches, the apocalypse, Biblical revelations, ghosts, demons, everything
but UFOs – all in the first two episodes. The show moves at such breakneck
speed that it doesn’t allow the viewer time to question the show’s confused
theology and lapses in credibility (e.g., cops don’t transport crime suspects
in the front seat) – and frankly, it’s so much fun that you don’t care about those.
Sleepy Hollow’s
pro-American Revolutionary spirit and unmuddied moral waters are a welcome
change from the moral equivalence so common from Hollywood (the terrorism drama
Homeland comes to mind). There is even a sympathetic nod to the Tea
Party – not the protesters of Crane’s day who dumped British tea in the Boston
Harbor, but today’s movement protesting big government overreach. When Abbie
tells Crane his story sounds insane, he takes a look at their breakfast receipt
and announces, “What’s insane is a ten percent levy on baked goods! You do
realize the Revolutionary War began on less than two percent? How is the public
not flocking to the streets in outrage?!”
Part of what sells the show is the convincing acting from British stage and
film actor Tom Mison, who hams it up ever so slightly as Ichabod Crane, and
Nicole Beharie, who played Jackie Robinson’s wife in 42, as Abbie Mills. They – and the show’s cinematic feel – elevate something
that might sink in cheesiness in the hands of lesser talents.
Sleepy Hollow is not the Shakespearean canvas of Breaking Bad; nor is it meant to be. But
it is scary and funny, the
characters are sympathetic, and the rousing good-versus-evil conflict is more
engaging and uplifting than Low Winter
Sun’s depressing nihilism. I’m
not alone in my appreciation: the
series premiered to an audience of 10 million and was Fox’s highest-rated fall
drama premiere since 2006. For viewers looking for a satisfying, fun, patriotic
thrill ride, head to Sleepy Hollow.
(This article originally appeared here on Acculturated, 10/1/13)
