Posting meme: *need a Sleepy Hollow icon*

[hedda62]

I cleverly scheduled brewsternorth's request "Things you like/are looking forward to about Sleepy Hollow" two days after the finale, which would be tomorrow, but I'm going to answer it today because WHEEEE. In other words, the delightfulness is fresh in memory, as is the HORRIBLE OH MY GOD HOW CAN YOU DO THAT cliffhanger.

I wasn't prepared to like Sleepy Hollow. As I posted a few days ago, my suspension of disbelief is fully functioning, but there are limits, and this show seemed like it was going to push them (like, out of a skyscraper), and I'm still mad at them for the Middle English thing but… you know, never mind. I can take retconning of American history for Secret Battle Against Evil purposes, and certainly I can manage witches and demons and resurrections and all that, because after all I've done vampires and werewolves and Slayers. The comparisons between Sleepy Hollow and Buffy are pretty obvious; it's just that SH hung up the apocalyptic window dressing a lot sooner. But both shows depend on the chemistry and likability of the leads - they even both have a pleasant British accent dryly commenting on the action! - on teamwork and friendship, on snark, and on tapping a deep essence of what it means to be human, more than they do on the supernatural-heavy plot elements, even if there'd be no show without them. Both of them can be total camp one minute and then get serious the next. And I'm expecting to see an overall evolution from silly to deep on SH as well, hopefully without losing any of the entertaining banter.

The obvious difference, and what's given SH a lot of its press, is the casting; how half of the leads (I'd say more, because despite the opening credits Jenny is a lot more prominent on the show now than Katrina) and a lot of the supporting cast members are non-white, which is great and really refreshing on network TV. It's worth noting, too, that of the main cast the only obvious immigrant is Ichabod himself, and he's an immigrant twice over. So they can play a bit with what would be a really painful stereotype if it was, say, rural Guatemalan comes to live in the U.S. and is baffled by computers and donut holes. Looking at this from the perspective of a time travel writer, of course, that didn't occur to me for a long time; I was too busy enjoying how Ichabod adjusts to the 21st century (the voice mails! I will never not be in love with the voice mails. And in the finale, you can see that Abbie's enchanted by them too, and then he starts complaining that his phone isn't the latest upgrade, oh man, you are part of our century now. And the skinny jeans. And Starbucks. Etc. It's actually a brilliant way of showing how foolish our reality is, which perhaps makes the more spooky part of their reality less ridiculous? After all, it's all magic to Ichabod). They may still be trying either too hard or not hard enough on the social aspects, but they bring up things like race and slavery and sexism and the hypocrisy of the Founding Fathers, which is, again, refreshing.

I haven't dipped into fanfic for SH yet (maybe I'll write some! that could be fun) but I'm assuming that it's one of those shows where slash takes a back seat to the obviousness of the Ichabod/Abbie pairing. Which… I am of two minds about. On the one hand, YES, but… well, first of all, Ichabod's married, even if his wife is a witch and neglected to tell him that and has been trapped in purgatory for centuries and I don't really like her that much. And secondly, I enjoy them as friends and colleagues ("colleagues" is putting it mildly. Fellow Witnesses Preventing the End of the World; stamp it on the letterhead). They are, in fact, absolutely delightful together, without adding even a hint of UST, although it's certainly there. And Abbie is a Strong Woman in that nice complicated sense that means she has a lot of vulnerabilities that don't get fixed by being in love with a man or having a man love her (though many of them seem to, and why wouldn't they). When she talks about loving and losing, it's about her sister and her parents and Sheriff Corbin, and it's her reunion with Jenny that hits the high emotional mark for the season. And that's fantastic. (I found the temptations she and Ichabod faced in the finale really interesting in that respect, but… spoilers.)

Then there are the Irvings, and… how wonderful are they? And I love how beautifully conflicted Frank Irving is, in his evolution through the whole season, right through to his actions in the finale, and how they tie up what might have been A and B plots into a near-seamless whole. (Also, Orlando Jones's full-throttle venture into fandom is delightful in its own regard. But that's a side benefit, akin to the benefit of getting to admire Tom Mison every week.)

I'm not even sure what I'm looking forward to, except more of the same but even better, and did I mention the HORRIBLE OH MY GOD HOW CAN YOU DO THAT cliffhanger? Fall 2014 - how are we supposed to wait that long?

Comments

[philomytha]

I've only watched the first couple of episodes so far, and it sounds like I may as well spread the rest out if there's not going to be any more until the autumn. I thoroughly enjoyed it and like you, didn't really care about the suspension of disbelief issues due to having way too much fun with Ichabod and Abbie. Though Ichabod constantly reminds me of one of my old housemates at Oxford, who was a bit more heavy-set but had the same facial hair, the same style of dress, the same accent and the same air of mild bewilderment at the world.

[enemyofperfect]

my suspension of disbelief is fully functioning, but there are limits, and this show seemed like it was going to push them (like, out of a skyscraper)

Ahahaha, accurate!

So much agreement about the Irvings. And the voicemails, and the casting, and Abbie's reunion with Jenny, and... yeah. This show.

The cliffhanger was remarkable, wasn't it?

[hedda62]

I think Ichabod is kind of a cliche of bewildered mild-mannered academic secret badass Brit (a younger Giles, as I intimated above), but nonetheless delightful for that. And yeah, you might want to wait on the rest because HORRIBLE CLIFFHANGER AS STATED.

[hedda62]

OH MY GOD cliffhanger. Like, way to put every single cast member in mortal peril at once (or reveal them as a villain; fantastic plot twist I did not see coming). I'm assuming Jenny will have to do the saving (though it would make me feel better about Katrina if she managed it) and Irving will have to wait for circumstances to reveal his innocence to guy-with-Donnelly's-face.

[philomytha]

Given his reaction to things like blocked drains and ants in the kitchen, I do not think my housemate was a secret badass! But Ichabod is very much a younger Giles, which is right up my street :-D.

[enemyofperfect]

I started out upset about the cliffhanger, but then as it just kept going I eventually had to laugh. At about 80% of it, anyway. I too would very much prefer that Katrina have an active role in fixing all of this.

It was so nice to see Donnelly's face again! Even under the circumstances!

[hedda62]

Having checked the SH tag on tumblr, I am… not really surprised at all the Katrina hate there. I'd rather not hate her, since I rather like her in her 18th-century edition, but it would be nice if they found something for her to do beside need rescuing and cause difficulties and have cleavage.

Brennan Brown keeps turning up on my TV screen in various law enforcement disguises. Perhaps it's all Donnelly risen from the grave to communicate an important message that we need to piece together and read in invisible ink.

[mmegaera]

Ah, so we've hooked you, just in time for all of us to have to wait at least eight months -- grrrrr... And just how am I supposed to do without my Tom Mison fix for that long? (that man is dropdead gorgeous -- and I think you pinned it about his character when you described his mild-mannered befuddlement).

I should have seen the John Noble plot twist coming, because after all, this is the man who was Denethor. But I didn't, because he'd almost convinced me up until tonight that he really could play a good guy.

I don't hate Katrina, exactly. I just really don't like her very much, at least in part because the actress playing her can't act worth a darn, which was proved in spades last night.

And that cliffhanger. Good grief. The dollhouse??? Not to mention those overgrown spray-painted grapevines they were calling trees.

I look at it this way, the way I look at all cliffhangers. It's going to be really, really hard for them to carry the show on if any of the folks who are actually threatened die. Irving? Check. Abbie? Check. Ichabod? Decidedly check. Katrina? Er... Never mind.

[hedda62]

I was hooked a while ago, but… yeah, this is quite the hiatus! Cliffhangers, for me, are not so much about who might die (as you say, none of them are likely to, including Katrina because that would just be a stupid resolution) as how the heck they're going to get them out of their terrible situation. And I love the dollhouse; it's seriously Whovian in its weirdness.

Agreed about Katia Winter, sigh. But good writing might manage to bypass a lack of acting.

[enemyofperfect]

I guess I'm not surprised that there's Katrina hate, either, but I feel a little lost as to what there is to hate about her, when the finale was the first time I felt like I had a sense of her as a person. But then, I'm missing the point, aren't I?

I could believe that of Donnelly. At least, I know I'd like to.

[hedda62]

But then, I'm missing the point, aren't I?

Heh. Hating the person who gets in the way of your ship is no less fervent when the ship is het instead of slash. But the haters also bring up her general uselessness, the problem of her being there to be rescued, and the fact that she's the mother of the Second Horseman (Ichabod being the father somehow doesn't get much mention). I am contradictorily hoping that she summons some powerful magic and zaps the First Horseman in the cods (since punching him in the jaw is impossible).

[tinny]

Hmm. Well. Commenting over here seems the better choice.

I have only seen the first few eps, and my disbelief just couldn't handle the utter ridiculousness of their apocalypse. But you have pointed out a few really interesting things. Also, Tom Mison is waaay hotter than ASH ever was, and I loved him too by the end.

I will probably catch up at some point.