SleepyHollowS01E02Fox, 23 September 2013

A witch is resurrected, and only Ichabod Crane can save Sleepy Hollow…

Clearly this show can’t have the out-of-time Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison, still impressing) pursued by the headless horseman every episode (although that’s exactly how this one opens—but it’s OK, it’s only a dream). Instead, the plan seems to be to revive every supernatural archetype and have them function as augurs of the coming apocalypse, to be signalled by the arrival of the four horsemen. Alright, but haven’t Buffy and Supernatural between them just about done it all?

The witch story here is OK, but the more interesting stuff about Crane adjusting to the modern world is rather played down. He does seem to be taking it all in his stride. Along with some terrible leaden dialogue recapitulating the events of the pilot, and guest star John Cho wandering about on his own like a demented Terminator, this episode made more than a few easily avoidable mis-steps.

With Crane getting tips from his trapped-in-limbo ghost exposition-wife, you’d have thought the “imaginary friend” quotient would have been filled for this show… Nope, think again, as Mills (Nicole Beharie, still failing to make any impression) also has visions of her dead mentor Sheriff Corben—at least it is a way of keeping Clancy Brown in the show occasionally, after he was dispatched so early in the pilot episode. However, it does suggest there’s going to be an awful lot of our main characters chatting to non-existent people as plot info dumps.

Verdict: Not a total loss, and weirdly entertaining despite not being terribly good (kinda like the hilarious Zero Hour), Sleepy Hollow still has some work to do to become essential viewing…

Episode 2 “Blood Moon”: 6/10

Brian J. Robb

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