Sleepy Hollow (2013): Meet Ichabod Crane with a Backbone

what a progression, huh?

The new Sleepy Hollow premiered on Fox tonight, created by sci-fi bigwigs Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. I've always loved Sleepy Hollow, from the bumbling Ichabod in the animated version to the screamy-fainty big-eyed Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's version. This sort of dark fantasy has always intrigued me, the beauty of it paired with the mystery of the unknown. I've read a lot of little tumblr review blurbs about the show to try to sort through how I feel about this new show, and a lot of it I've read from both camps is right in line with how I'm feeling. Mostly, I am intrigued, though, and that intrigue stems from all the threads Orci and Kurtzman are pulling in to shake up the story: some Revelations prophesy, a witchcraft undercurrent to everything you know about history, time-travel thrusting an ordinary human to a still-ordinary-but-different world (albeit 250 years in the future), among other things.

First of all, the main players. Abbie Mills, Ichabod Crane, the Headless Horseman, Katrina Crane--even the ones they killed off in the first episode (sorry, spoilers...). The relationships are well-developed and well-executed for the pilot of a new show, and enough of a plot surfaces to drive certain ones together and others apart. Abbie makes me me happy at my core, a strong [minority] woman in the lead role, in a place of [relative] power, who makes her own decisions and isn't obviously sexualized from the first second. The relationship established between her and Ichabod right away is one of understanding, of being an outsider, of being made to feel small without anything you can do to stop it. It is not romantic, it is not her being saved by him or swept off her feet She is confident in her capability, even when faced with things that shake her to her core, make her remember the day that broke a part of her. This man who has had such a history of unsurety and doubt, Ichabod Crane, finally has a backbone. He doesn't bumble like the animated one, and he isn't a scream away from a faint like Johnny Depp. He is impressively cavalier about accepting his fate, all the while adapting to 21st-century sarcasm while devoting himself to the task at hand, but he can't figure out how to open a car door. He's pretty scruffy and attractive, there's no doubting that, but somehow he was written with an actual personality to go with it! Flaws and everything! Even being supernaturally tied to a big scary axe-wielding mystery man doesn't seem to phase him. Granted, he is told that in a dream by his assumed-to-be-dead lovely wife Katrina. A strong, powerful GORGEOUS witch with bitchin red hair. She was, obviously, burned at the stake for witchcraft shortly after Ichabod "died" and is somehow still playing games that no one knows the rules to except for her and a few select members of different covens. I've heard angry hard-core feminist rants about her boobs being pretty prominent all the time but hey, 1780s fashion, amirite? A good décolletage was a girl's best friend, especially as a means of manipulation, and I am sure Katrina Crane was no stranger to getting her way by any means necessary. She was the one who cast the spell that bound her lover to the Headless Horseman, after all. Speaking of said Horseman, he is probably the most interesting twist on the old mythos: Death itself come again as one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and Sleepy Hollow is his battleground. Not to mention the fact that he's actually pretty good with an assault rifle.

The stories were made better by the cinematography, the general feel of the show. Even the corniest concept can be made great when treated with the right respect. The colors are brilliant and there is a really interesting use of camera angles, especially when heads are involved--or rather, camera perspectives. In one such moment, a beheading occurs and the camera is seemingly looking out of the eyes of the beheaded as it falls to the ground. I'm interested to see how they'll deal with the hell-characters aspect of the first season. The feel of the show was very similar to Grimm and Supernatural, with a touch of old X-Files believer/non-believer dichotomy.

The thing that I am nervous about was the heavy-handed insinuation of the general layout of the show: "Two witnesses brought together for a seven-year period of tribulations" -- I am nervous about this show getting ahead of itself before it figures out how to grow up and not be a corny little knockoff show that's too full of itself. However, I do enjoy the plan because it implies that there is, you know, a plan. . . this shouldn't end up like Lost that forgot what the hell it was doing by season 4. I am looking forward to following this show, if not religiously then academically, if you'll excuse the turn of phrase. There's the historical aspect that I like a lot, and the fictionalization of certain moments and persons from history itself really tickles my fancy. There is a beautiful use of sarcasm and fish-out-of-water humor, and a refreshing number of sassy remarks. But really, in the end, it just comes down to this:

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.