In news that won’t come as a huge surprise to those following the show’s fortunes, Sleepy Hollow has been cancelled.
Variety reports that Fox has put the final nail in the coffin of Ichabod Crane’s adventures after it “saw its ratings plummet” for the show’s fourth season.
After an incredible and very well-received first season, Sleepy Hollow seemed to run into problems almost immediately. There was a revolving door of showrunners, and the awesome Nichole Beharie left the show after Season Three. Fans had complained that her character Abbie Mills had been sidelined in the show’s second season and it wasn’t really an issue that ever got resolved. She was replaced by Janina Gavankar for the show’s fourth season, but it feels like the writing was already on the wall at that point.
The show’s first season was a wonderful blend of fish out of water comedy (with Tom Mison’s Ichabod Crane waking up in present day America) and inventive genre thrills, with Crane and Mills facing supernatural threats ranging from tree demons to the recurring headless horseman. There were great villains, like John Noble’s Henry Parrish, and a whole range of fascinating characters, including Lyndie Greenwood’s Jenny Mills and Orlando Jones’ Frank Irving, and the genius stroke of having John Cho recur as a remorseful undead cop with a neat broken neck trick who regretted his decision to join the dark side.
However, the second season seemed to lose sight of what fans actually liked about the show in the first place and faced an uphill struggle from there.
Still, let us never forget the majesty of Ichabod’s customer service line phone manner.
“I offer this tale, no matter how cruelly he may have treated you, to suggest that you do not give up. Nor give in to anything less than certainty in matters of the heart…It is I who should thank you, kind woman, for unlocking this vehicle from afar. And showing me how the entertainment system operates. Farewell, Yolanda.”
Farewell, Yolanda indeed.
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