Another classic gets the TV treatment…
American author Washington Irving, is best known for his short stories, which include,’Rip Van Winkle’ and, of course, ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.’ The latter of the two has now been reincarnated, yet again, in this TV mini-series titled plain ol’ Sleepy Hollow. Instead of being set in the 1700’s, we now see an 18th century-attired, Ichabod Crane, in the 21st century. Now, I like the idea of having Ichabod in present day America but I thought they could have spent a little more time having him shocked at all the progress made in the 250 years he’s been buried, but his only real look of wonderment is at the electric car windows. He is a bit startled when he almost gets run over, after having just woken from a two-and-a-half century slumber, but he appears to take the rest in his stride. I realise that they can only show so much in 45 minutes, but the car windows? Please. And he was curios about the Starbucks. I’m curious why he was curious.
Episode 2 review can be found by clicking here.
Ichabod Crane is on a battlefield in 1781 New York, fighting in the Revolution. He sees a masked horseman with a huge axe and branded on his hand is the shape of a bow and arrow. (His eyesight is way better than mine). The horseman attacks Ichabod, injuring him very seriously, but before he goes down he beheads the masked figure in one swift stroke. The pair collapse and then it goes dark. After some muffled, overheard voices, Ichabod pushes his way out of some dirt and white stuff that looked suspiciously like the stuff they used in Wanted, when they needed to heal James McAvoy’s character.
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Ichabod (Tom Mison) has woken up in a cave, and then stumbles out onto the road, almost getting killed. We then get to meet the short-lived Sheriff August Corbin (Clancy Brown) and Deputy Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie), who get called out to a very serious case, where someone’s horses are apparently unsettled. When they arrive they split up, then Abbie finds a beheaded body, and the Sheriff becomes one. Ichabod is picked up by Officer Andy (John Cho), and is then escorted back to the station, where they decide to plug him into a lie detector. The session was extremely funny as they didn’t do the questioning any way I’ve ever seen, they simply get him to yak on for a few minutes, then declare him obviously crazy because he passed the “test.”
Abbie is ordered to escort Ichabod (even though she’s just witnessed her partner being beheaded and found another victim without a head) to the nuthouse for further tests but she decides to take a detour to find out if he can show where the cave was, he claims to have come from. When they arrive they find a bible, which belonged to George Washington, and Ichabod gets some flashbacks of his wife placing it with him for safekeeping. After more hullabaloo and broken police procedure, they begin to investigate the headless horseman, who it turns out is actually one of “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” and if he finds his noggin, everyone is doomed.
Certainly enjoyable, to a point, but keep your tongue planted firmly in your cheek for this one.
Grade: B-
TV Review by Ed Blackadder, Lead Entertainment Writer
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