Sleepy Hollow had some pretty intricate and occasionally interesting storylines during it’s second season, but with some major casting changes and a new showrunner, Season 3 looks to be going in a totally different direction. This week, Fox CEO Dana Waldon revealed that Sleepy Hollow should look different when it returns to the schedule this fall. Mainly, the show plans to be a whole lot more “fun” than it was last season. Here's how the drama plans to do it.
What we asked for [in Season 3] was a bit of a return to the storytelling model of the first season — a bit more of the fun instead of such a deep mythology that got a little bit dense.
It’s not like everything in Season 2 sucked. Ichabod still had plenty of the fish-out-of water moments that made him so endearing to audiences in the first season, and he even hilariously took up karaoke on the series, giving the gang a hangout similar to the Founding Fathers bar the Bones team often goes to after work. The end of the season also featured Abbie going back in time and getting a little taste of what it feels like to be a person out of her own time, which made for some compelling TV. It just all didn’t come together adequately in Season 2, and Fox seems to know that.
Walden’s comments to TV Line also included an obvious ‘we’re proud of Season 2’ comment before moving on to the crux of where the network wants the show to go moving forward.
Our observation was that a lot of the show had moved into the fantastical world, where it used to be a show that was weighted very evenly between Abbie in the real world and Ichabod in the fantastical. We’re trying to shift it back to a more even-handed storytelling engine.
It would be great if that happens. Sleepy Hollow became a fan-favorite during its first season largely because of the relationship between Ichabod and Abbie, as well as between Abbie and her sister Jenny, who went through hardships during childhood. The mythology stuff is interesting as well, of course, but the heavy focus on plot during the last swath of episodes didn’t always work as well as some of the earlier, more character-driven stuff.
Sleepy Hollow already has big plans in the works for Season 2, including a crossover with the channel’s veteran drama Bones, which will presumably be pretty lighthearted. The show is also introducing two new actresses in Nikki Reed and Shannyn Sossamon, who will play new characters Betsy Ross and Pandora, respectively. The new characters have been added presumably as replacements for the likes of Katrina, Henry, Captain Irving and the Headless Horseman.
You can see how Sleepy Hollow Season 3 will shape out when the show returns to the schedule this fall. Catch new episodes starting on Thursday, October 1 at 9 p.m. ET. In the meantime, check out the full fall schedule.
