Well, here we are again. Sarah here, from SciFridays, taking a recap of another Fox show. We all know how well that turned out last time, *coughTheFollowingcough*.  Actually, the reason these are starting three episodes in is because of my inherent skepticism that this would be a good show. 

The premise of Sleepy Hollow is a simple one – Ichabod Crane is a British spy now on the side of the USA in the Revolutionary War. He decapitates a Hessian soldier in the heat of battle, but that soldier doesn’t go down. Both “die.” Flash forward to modern times: Ichabod rises from his grave, as he became intrinsically linked to the headless soldier (the Headless Horseman, in case no one’s picked up on that yet) who is, by the way, Death. One of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, as it were. He shortly teams up with a police officer, Lt. Abbie Mills, in Sleepy Hollow, who until now has just been investigating some weird crimes.

I’ll be the first to admit that the show started a little fluffy. The skepticism returned as the exposition stumbled and bumbled it’s way around. Lt. Abbie Mills is trying to join Quantico (and criticized for wanting to move up in her career path? What?), so naturally good old ‘absent parent’ plot device kicks in, and she’s motivated to stick around. Ichabod wakes up, and some general shenanigans occur. 

Honestly, Abbie accepts the supernatural business really quickly. We find out that she had an experience with the devil, maybe, when she was a kid, but it’s still a really quick turn around. The Headless Horseman is also not terribly scary.

That being said – the characters (Abbie and Ichabod, namely) are interesting and I like them. Tom Mison plays Ichabod with a charming naiveté that isn’t blundering or obnoxious. He doesn’t forget that Crane is an intelligent man capable of logical thought process, displaced in time or not. Nicole Beharie is great as Abbie Mills, commanding a pretty good lieutenant authority with a nice even ‘still a human being’ keel. I am VERY hopeful that she proves to be a strong female role model. It bears mentioning that there is actual diversity in this show, but I don’t want to jinx it.

Germans, even!

The show has a plan. Seven. Years. That’s how long the two ‘witnesses’ (Crane and Mills) have to stop the Apocalypse by stopping various agents of the harbringers of doom. So, the show has a very Supernatural feel with a ‘monster of the week’ deal. That being said, the Devil has shown up a few times, and I’m going to admit that it’s kinda scary.