Sleepy Hollow: Bonkers and loving it.

Sleepy Hollow is the most delightfully insane TV show I've ever seen, hands down.  Instead of being a boring novel I probably didn't read* when it was assigned to me, it's about time travel and the apocalypse and Ichabod Crane looking like he's on the cover of a romance novel. (The actual plot: Revolutionary War hero Ichabod Crane comes back to life in the present day to stop the apocalypse and solve crimes.  I told you it was bonkers).

*Early American lit just isn't my thing, y'all.  It's BAD.






Ichabod Crane, making a very convincing case for men with ponytails:

Ichabod?  More like IchaBABE.*

Aside from the aforementioned handsomeness, Ichabod Crane is a former Oxford professor from the late 18th century who wakes up in a cave one day, only to discover it's the year 2013 and the headless horseman is actually the first horseman of the apocalypse and he (Ichabod) and his glorious hair (otherwise known as the Ponytail of Impossible Handsomeness) have been tasked with keeping the world safe.  Probably the best part of this show is Ichabod's reactions to modern technology: complete befuddlement mixed with a desire to not *seem* befuddled, so he tries to take things in stride and just utterly fails.  Just watch the scene where he gets scared by the shower, or the scene where he calmly asks if there's a law requiring so many Starbucks, or the scene where he makes friends with the OnStar lady.  Or the scene where he eats donut holes for the first time, then gets SUPER ANGRY over the sales tax.  Really, there are countless bits that are way funnier than they have any right to be, and it's all magnificent.

*OMG I am so sorry that won't happen again, I promise.


Abbie Morgan, the Scully to Ichabod's Mulder:

She's doing a remarkable job of resisting the Ichababe-ness thus far.**

Abbie is the skeptical but caring police officer (sheriff?) that first takes Ichabod seriously, and then for reasons that really don't make much sense gets Ichabod named as a consultant for the department.  Where Ichabod totally embraces the craziness of the impending apocalypse ("Those mysterious burnings around town? They must be revenge by the spirit of an accused witch!") Abbie is a little more reluctant, but her own experiences as a child with the supernatural make her the most sympathetic ear to Ichabod's plight.  She's also a good friend to poor confused Ichabod, leaving him post-it notes explaining modern technology all around his place (my favorite: a note on the TV that says "it's like theater.")  They have a lovely chemistry, and her occasional disbelief/sarcasm balances out Ichabod's earnestness very nicely.


**I lied.  Sorry/not sorry.


Katrina Crane, Ichabod's Revolutionary War era wife/exposition device:

Purgatory has one hell of a hair stylist.

Katrina put Ichabod into the trance that kept him alive until he was needed to fight the apocalypse, because Katrina was a witch.  She was later put to death for being a witch* and is now hanging out in Purgatory until whenever Ichabod needs an explanation for whatever weird occurrences are happening in Sleepy Hollow.

*This brings me to my main quibble with Sleepy Hollow, which I know will sound absolutely ridiculous but I have to get it out there.  THE HISTORY IS ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLACE.  I don't know much about American history, to be sure, but witch burnings had pretty much died out in Europe by 1700, so for a witch to be put to death in the late 1780s-- in a place that had fervently embraced the Enlightenment and reason and scorned superstition-- seems weird.  Also, one episode deals with the lost colony of Roanoke and THEY SPEAK MIDDLE ENGLISH.  (It was at this exact point that my Early Modern historian friends' heads exploded).  I mean, it was kind of amazing for a network TV show to have roughly 10 minutes of spoken Middle English, but absolutely no one was still speaking Middle English by the late 1500s, okay?  That was the era of Shakespeare, not Chaucer.  And yes, I know just how ludicrous it is to criticize the historical accuracy of a show that claims George Washington wasn't just fighting the British but also the forces of hell itself, but STILL.  Middle English in the late 1500s is just a bridge too far.  I get that Middle English is actually really fun to speak (I had to memorize 20 lines of it for an English class in undergrad, then perform it with correct pronunciation and it was super fun) but let's come up with a better reason next time, okay writers?


Washington Irving, the gruff captain:

You should follow this actor on Twitter.  He loves this show more than ANYONE.
It's great.

Irving is the gruff captain that lets the two main leads get away with a surprising amount of shenanigans, and you get the sense that he is definitely up to something.  (Also up to something: guest star John Cho, who is clearly practicing witchcraft because how else can he be 41 years old and look younger than me?)


Look, I don't know what to tell you.  This is a kind of stupid show that embraces its stupidity and in that embrace manages rise above it.  It's history jokes with a dash of the occult and I really could not love it more.


Verdict:  Transcendently stupid.