It Still Stings: Sleepy Hollow’s Early Seasons Were Peak Horror TV—Before It Lost Its Head

Editor’s Note: TV moves on, but we haven’t. In our feature series It Still Stings, we relive emotional TV moments that we just can’t get over. You know the ones, where months, years, or even decades later, it still provokes a reaction? We’re here for you. We rant because we love. Or, once loved. And obviously, when discussing finales in particular, there will be spoilers:

It’s easy to memory-hole after a decade of hindsight, but for a brief two years in the mid-2010s, the FOX supernatural procedural Sleepy Hollow was pretty much the biggest show on TV. It kicked off with a buzzy premiere that scored more than 10 million viewers and seemed like the next monster (literally!) watercooler hit that would probably run for several years following the same track of something like Bones or The X-Files.

Instead, Sleepy Hollow flamed out spectacularly not long after its 2013 premiere, limping to an unsatisfying conclusion in a shortened fourth and final season just as the former flagship hit was relegated to the proverbial “Friday Death Slot” (aka the time slot where shows typically go to die) on the network’s schedule as midseason filler in early 2017.

But that brief early run before the wheels (head?) came off and the show petered out? It was two seasons and 31 episodes of pure, cheesy, network TV horror perfection. 

So how did it all go so badly? The series started as a risky, high-concept project for FOX—but quickly became Internet buzz-fodder thanks to its bonkers premise and the crackling chemistry between leads Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie. Mison plays Ichabod Crane, a Revolutionary War soldier transported to the present day where he’s faced with a lingering supernatural threat as he tries to acclimate to just how much the world has changed in more than two centuries. He’s partnered with modern day police officer Abbie Mills (Beharie) to try and save the modern world. It put its supernatural story through an alt-history blender, crafting a story equal parts bonkers and incredibly compelling, with a vibe and aesthetic all its own.

After the first season became a breakout hit, the network built on its 13-episode freshman season with 18 episodes in Season 2, expertly expanding the world and rules it’d established by building out its mythology, and doubling down on the buddy-cop charisma between Mison and Beharie. But that success also brought challenges. Showrunner Mark Goffman departed the series at the end of Season 2, which started a revolving door of new showrunners, co-showrunners, and retooling for the remaining two seasons. 

Season 3 added a smattering of new cast members meant to remix the dynamic with some fresh blood, but most of the changes were not well-received by fans. Even worse, they wrote out Orlando Jones’ fan-favorite supporting character Frank Irving, which only exacerbated the growing displeasure. Supporting player John Noble (Fringe) also ended his arc at the end of Season 2, removing another fan-favorite from the equation.

A messy, forced crossover with FOX’s Bones didn’t help matters (it was fun, admittedly, but illustrated how much the show was leaning into gimmicks to try and maintain some hype). The story also started to collapse under the weight of its robust silliness in Year 3, as the series quickly found the rubicon and crossed it from “fun and smart type of silly” to… just generally bad and silly. Sleepy Hollow always walked the line, which is what made it so great. But it meant the line was always on a razor’s edge, and when they crossed it, the show quickly fell apart.

The series’ fourth and final season is a textbook example of how not to save a TV show people generally liked at one time. Basically, the series was rebooted, with Beharie’s fan-favorite character unceremoniously killed off while Mison’s Ichabod is relocated from the namesake Sleepy Hollow to Washington, D.C. He’s partnered up with new characters, and the story only gets messier and more convoluted from there. Moving Sleepy Hollow out of Sleepy Hollow pretty much illustrates how much this show had lost what made it work in the first place by the end.

By the time the show wrapped, there was less than one-fifth of the audience still hanging around to see it. And honestly, I can’t tell you exactly how the series ended, because I also gave up on it halfway through the third season and only hate-watched in the background the rest of the show out of begrudging obligation when it was clear it was headed off the rails. But suffice it to say, it was just bad.

But those first two seasons are still pure TV gold. 

FOX created something special with Sleepy Hollow, with a diverse cast and ambitious storytelling in the early run, and the first two seasons were still in that sweet spot of risk where the creative team had the freedom to take some swings before the network truly realized they had a hit on their hands. They caught lighting in a bottle with Mason and Beharie, who could carry the silliness and still make sure viewers were having a great time with the material. 

Those first two seasons were dense, to be sure, but the narrative remained closely tethered to Ichabod’s life and the consequences of his presence on the modern world. More than anything, it at least felt like they had a plan in those first two outings. The story was always big and a bit wacky, sure, but you knew it was going somewhere that made its own type of sense. Those first two seasons positively reveled in the Colonial-style atmosphere of this world, drawing a twisting and sprawling story where all (or at least most) of the dots connected—pretty much all the elements they started leaving behind in the back half of the series.

Even better, you can really stop watching the show after Season 2 and feel like it’s reached a satisfying conclusion (and to be clear, it is a far more satisfying conclusion than watching the show all the way through). The Season 2 finale works surprisingly well as a series ender, if you want to treat it as such. Much like how The CW’s Supernatural could easily have ended at Season 5 when its original five-year plan wrapped, Sleepy Hollow is the same way. Things are still a bit open-ended, as all great stories often are, but the main arc has been wrapped and the story has reached a breakpoint.

If you call it quits there, those first two seasons still make for one of the best supernatural shows of the modern era—and the perfect Halloween binge.

Trent Moore is a recovering print journalist, and freelance editor and writer with bylines at lots of places. He likes to find the sweet spot where pop culture crosses over with everything else. Follow him at @trentlmoore on Twitter.

For all the latest TV news, reviews, lists and features, follow @Paste_TV.