Sleepy Hollow

I watched the first two episodes of this new Fox series the other night and have to say I am unimpressed.  The basic plot is that Ichabod Crane beheads a Hessian soldier during the Revolutionary War but dies in the process.  He comes back to life in modern day thanks to some witchcraft.  Ichabod joins forces with Abbie Mills, a police officer - a black woman in trousers! - to fight against the forces of evil.

In the pilot, the Hessian - now a headless horseman - is back and searching for his head.  The best part about the episode was that Clancy Brown gets beheaded.  Clancy Brown played the Kurgan in The Highlander, a movie about immortals who can only die when their head is chopped off.  Good casting there.  The rest is hard to swallow.  Ichabod explains that he was General Washington's specialist in fighting witchcraft and demons, which is why he had been dispatched against the Hessian.  Abbie is won over far too easily (massively imperiling her career with little basis), Ichabod accepts his resurrection much too quickly, and the police bring him in as a consultant far too readily.

In the second episode, the forces of evil seek to resurrect a powerful witch who was burned during the Revolutionary War.  The big problem here is that witches weren't burned in America, they were hanged.  And the last batch of witches hanged was at Salem in 1692, not 1780.  Such historical illiteracy always grates on me.  Furthermore, Ichabod knows of the underground tunnels that run beneath Sleepy Hollow and he discovers a stash of black powder still there.  Seriously?  Not only that, it proves to still be highly explosive after two centuries in a damp underground tunnel.  Sigh.  Another goofy thing is that Ichabod is still wearing his 1780s clothes in the second episode.  Couldn't get something modern?

On the positive, I did like how he tossed aside his pistol after firing once.  "It has more than one shot?"  Awesome.  His exchange with Officer Mills about how he had always favored abolition was quite amusing.  Better yet was when he complained about his incarceration and gave an impassioned statement about his rights.  But the best was his shock that breakfast should cost nearly $5 and 40 cents was tax.  That is nearly 10% and we went to war with England because it was 2%.  Yes!  There is some accurate history!

At one point, our heroes learn of a prophecy that says two witnesses will spend seven years together in an effort to stave off the four horsemen of the Apocalypse; targeting a 7 year run for the series?  Overly optimistic.