Sleepy Hollow (Fox, 9 p.m., debuted Monday, September 16)What is it?: Forget everything you think you know about Ichabod Crane. Instead of the cowardly schoolteacher-cum-ladies man of Washington Irving’s short story (or the cowardly police detective-cum-ladies man of Tim Burton’s film), the
real Ichabod Crane (Tom Mison) is a former Oxford professor turned revolutionary in the War Of Independence who, on special instruction from George Washington, cut off the head of a villainous redcoat who may or may not be one of the Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse. Crane is then buried for more than 200 years, only to rise from the dead just as the Headless Horseman gets up to his old ax-murdering tricks again. There’s also a police officer (Nicole Beharie) on her way to Quantico, who gets sucked into Crane’s adventures in order to avenge her murdered boss. It’s ridiculous but surprisingly fun, like a tale told by the world’s most charmingly batshit idiot.
Target audience: People for whom any of the above description sounded appealing; people who don’t mind that there’s no way this can possibly sustain itself past episode three; Clancy Brown enthusiasts (first 10 minutes).
Ideal way to watch: Halloween night, post-trick-or-treating, with a sugar high strong enough to make you jump at every goofy scare and laugh too loud at the (unexpectedly) decent jokes.
Context-free dialogue from the pilot predicting how this will do: “Perhaps an asylum is exactly where I belong.”