Yesterday I sat down with my DVR and my “Impress Me” face and watched the pilot to Sleepy Hollow. My ultimate conclusion is that this is yet another show in a long line of shows that suffers from a slightly interesting (though not original) premise and has nothing else going for it. We saw a lot of these recently. Revolution, Once Upon A Time, Alcatraz and Terra Nova all suffered this same problem, and 2 of them have suffered cancelation for it. Somehow Once Upon A Time is still on-somebody fucking explain that one to me-and Revolution does have the possibility to get better because of who’s working on it, but ultimately they suffer from the Avatar effect. It’s all gloss and no substance.
Shows like this are watched because of shows like LOST. The success that had gave us these hyped up piles of garbage. That isn’t to say LOST was perfect (though it was damn near), but at least LOST was GOOD and knew how to make compelling television. NONE of these can do that. Thankfully, Sleepy Hollow has a few things going for it and a few things really against it.
It’s a mish mash. The show isn’t actually terrible, which is a wonderful thing, but it has the potential-especially with what it has working against it-to become terrible. But, it also has the potential to become-even with the stupid apocalypse shit-an actually pretty decent program too. It’s really 50/50 at this point (granted I have not seen episode 2 as of yet and that may sway me differently). I just don’t want yet another case of the week overarching story. I’m tired of that. Especially with scifi or supernatural stuff. Alcatraz had the potential to be fantastic and the case of the week thing just botched it all to hell.
Also, one thing that worried me immensely was the fact that the show was “created” by 4 people. I say “created” because technically it was created by Washington Irving back when he wrote the fuckin thing. I lived in TerryTown as a kid, so maybe I’m just protective of Sleepy Hollow. Anyway, 4 creators, and that screams problems. Each person no matter what is going to have their own vision for what they want the show to become, no matter how much they may agree on things or work together. It’ll happen. I guarantee it, and when it does, that will be a very interesting thing to watch.
Overall I wasn’t really impressed but I was at least intrigued. It has potential, and it has a lot going for it. I would at last recommend checking it out.
I’m giving the show-as of now-a rating (based off the pilot anyway) of a C+.
Shows like this are watched because of shows like LOST. The success that had gave us these hyped up piles of garbage. That isn’t to say LOST was perfect (though it was damn near), but at least LOST was GOOD and knew how to make compelling television. NONE of these can do that. Thankfully, Sleepy Hollow has a few things going for it and a few things really against it.
- The lead actor is phenomenal. I mean that guy needs to be an enormous star right now. Somebody get him on a better program.
- The buy in factor: So many people don’t want to start watching a show because they don’t want some convoluted fantastical story to deal with but with a show like this, we all already know the premise. Familiarity is safe, and so we watch it.
- The fuck your familiarity factor: This is the major thing I HATED is that while the show took a nutty premise already with putting Crane in current time (which I admit was more entertaining than I expected it to be, probably thanks to the guy portraying Crane than anything else), it also turned everything we knew about Sleepy Hollow on its head…and NOT in a good way. The 4 horsemen? REALLY? Ugh.
- The horseman has no character. None. At all. The horseman was the best part of the Tim Burton Sleepy Hollow. He was hilarious. This guy is just generic badass unkillable bad guy stock character #31. Nothing interesting. Not even his arrow mark.
- It’s well shot, but in a typical network drama way. Nothing too fancy. Actually, it kind of gave me a visual ice cream headache. There was some cinematography I loved and some I really despised.
- Also, the dialogue at times was cringeworthy, and it did fall into a bit of predictability.
- Rolling Stones song at the beginning? Hell yeah.
It’s a mish mash. The show isn’t actually terrible, which is a wonderful thing, but it has the potential-especially with what it has working against it-to become terrible. But, it also has the potential to become-even with the stupid apocalypse shit-an actually pretty decent program too. It’s really 50/50 at this point (granted I have not seen episode 2 as of yet and that may sway me differently). I just don’t want yet another case of the week overarching story. I’m tired of that. Especially with scifi or supernatural stuff. Alcatraz had the potential to be fantastic and the case of the week thing just botched it all to hell.
Also, one thing that worried me immensely was the fact that the show was “created” by 4 people. I say “created” because technically it was created by Washington Irving back when he wrote the fuckin thing. I lived in TerryTown as a kid, so maybe I’m just protective of Sleepy Hollow. Anyway, 4 creators, and that screams problems. Each person no matter what is going to have their own vision for what they want the show to become, no matter how much they may agree on things or work together. It’ll happen. I guarantee it, and when it does, that will be a very interesting thing to watch.
Overall I wasn’t really impressed but I was at least intrigued. It has potential, and it has a lot going for it. I would at last recommend checking it out.
I’m giving the show-as of now-a rating (based off the pilot anyway) of a C+.
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