Doctor Who Fan? Console Yourself With Sleepy Hollow
So, I’ve been watching Sleepy Hollow recently. I was determined not to like it, as that would mean the consort had been right about a show and I would therefore never trick him into watching something like Suburgatory again (which is, by the way, utter, unparalleled genius).
But Gosh darn, if I didn’t really love Sleepy Hollow. My first attraction to the series was this;
I’d rather not say how long I spent looking for a Tom Mison picture, thanks.
That’s Tom Mison, who plays co-lead Ichabod Crane, a man transported from revolutionary American to modern-day Sleepy Hollow by witchery in order to stop evil. Ridiculous? Utterly. But Tom Mison, who pitches the comic scenes about his change in time-such as soliloquising down the phone about love to a phone operative- perfectly, is perfection. He’s at some times bumbling, at some times swashbuckling, at some times a little bit terse. He also happens to be second only to Norman Reedus in the “Men On TV I Would” list.
Then there’s this;
Well-developed, witty and consequential female characters really do it for me.
This is Nicole Beharie, who plays the police lieutenant who meets Crane soon after he arrives in Sleepy Hollow. Compassionate, intelligent, selfless, brave, and driven, Abbey Mills is one of the finest female characters on TV today and her partnership with Crane- devoid of Mulder-and-Scully style sexual tension, at least so far- is all the better for it. She also happens to be second only to Lauren Cohan in the “Women on TV I Would Do” list. Walking Dead really has the monopoly on impossibly good-looking characters facing an apocalypse.
Along with a cohort of fun regular characters- Lyndie Greenwood as Abbey’s troubled, more ruthless sister Jenny is my favourite, but Orlando Jones as a sceptic-turned-believer police chief is close behind- the duo run around trying to fight off the apocalypse predicted in the Book of Revelations. Occasionally John Noble, esteemed thesp, turns up to make dinner of the scenery and smile in an ambiguous way. And it’s as brilliantly silly as it sounds- the stories are brisk and uncomplicated, with a freak-of-the-week set up featuring some gloriously underused monster (Wendigos, Golems, Green Man etc) with some sensational real effects. It’s bright, delicious, clever fun, with a lightness of touch that stops the show ever getting bogged down in it’s own mythology.
And this got me thinking: why was it I loved this show so much? Then I realised: it’s my replacement Doctor Who. After a season in which I found DW stories too convoluted, found character tension to be forced, found the series dissapearing up it’s own arse, Sleepy Hollow is the embodiment of all the things I love about Doctor Who: the out-of-time man matched with a banterous audience surrogate, fighting monsters every week and leading everything up to a neat series finale. And so, for anyone else who’s soul was troubled by this series of Doctor Who, I cannot recommend Sleepy Hollow enough. Just don’t mess with the Horseman. Any of them.
The Cutprice Guignol 