Revoking A Recommendation - Sleepy Hollow

I should have known one season was too little to base a television recommendation on, and now I'm eating my words. Today marks the first and hopefully one of the few times I will ever feel the need to revoke a television recommendation, and I feel very strongly about it.

Season one of Fox's Sleepy Hollow was lightning in a bottle, and one of the shows I was most excited about for that television season. It was zany,fun, exciting and had a lot of heart. The two main leads were probably what attracted me most to the show -- Nicole Beharie as Abbie Mills and Tom Mison as Ichabod Crane had a chemistry most shows could only dream about, a tender and charming Mulder and Scully-esque vibe.  The cases were fun, the heroes equal parts snarky and badass, and the headless horseman aspect was just crazy enough to work.    

It was also awesome and refreshing to see a show with a diverse cast: it had a black female protagonist, and wonderful supporting roles for Orlando Jones and Lyndie Greenwood and even arguably John Cho. In season one, everyone got a piece of the action and the storytelling was fast-paced and energetic.

Then in season two, it all started going wrong, and most people are in agreement as to why.  Spoilers ahead.

In season two, we started seeing less and less of the main cast and more about Crane's family which just wasn't as interesting. I kept tuning in to see Ichabod and Abbie fight demons together and potentially start the foundations of a relationship (much like Mulder and Scully or Booth and Bones), but instead I had to sit through learning about Ichabod's son, wife, exes and revolutionary enemies.  Meanwhile, Abbie didn't get to do much of anything and neither did Captain Irving or Jenny Mills.  

One of the last episodes I truly remember enjoying was season two, episode 9, "Mama." I think the reason for this is that it went back to focusing on Abbie, her intriguing past, and utilizing the strong connection between her and her sister. After that, though, the show started slipping really fast. It was just boring and drawn out, missing all the energy and charm of season one.

I'm a pretty loyal viewer of my shows; once I'm hooked, I'm generally in it for the long haul. But they killed what I assumed would be an overarching Big Bad, and they also killed off Captain Irving in a very anticlimactic way and that was my breaking point.  I just couldn't understand why they would take away the characters with the most potential while leaving non-starters like Katrina and Henry Crane.  Mid-season two is when I officially stopped watching, but I kept an eye out on the fandom in case the show ever seemed to right itself enough to draw me back in.  Unfortunately, I have since heard about the season 3 finale, and it looks like things just went from bad to worse.

Another spoiler warning, just in case.

They killed off Abbie.  Abbie Mills, the lead of the show, the most enjoyable part of the show. Not only this, they did it a in way that makes it seems like she was only there to support Ichabod Crane this whole time. Well, this isn't sitting well with most fans, me included. This has been part of a disturbing television trend where black characters are being killed off to shove white characters further in the limelight, and people are tired of it.      

The backlash is literally everywhere right now, and it should be. Fans are questioning the treatment of the black characters, and there's a twitter campaign that's been revived: Abbie Mills Deserves Better. She really did, and so did the show, and the fans.

There is very little to be excited about from a renewed Sleepy Hollow now that Abbie is gone, and I find myself hoping it gets the boot. It's really hard to see something that had so much potential dig its own grave, but that's what has happened with this show, and I have to take back my once glowing reviews for it.