By Monique
This news was issued a while ago, May 21, to be exact, but I’m just now getting around to it. Forgive me, but stuff was poppin’ for a time. Now that I’m back on my Sleepy Hollow grind, let’s take a look at what new things might be on the way for Abbie and Ichabod and why it’s time for fans to believe that the show is finally back on track.
Give Me My Remote had an interview with executive producer Heather Kadin about Season 3 of Sleepy Hollow, and Kadin was rather forthright and honest about where Sleepy Hollow failed and how they’re working on making it better. Let’s break it down and discuss what could be coming for us down the pike.
A version of Sleepy Hollow we recognize: It goes without saying that Mark Goffman f’ed it up. Royally f’ed it up. He nearly took the show out, and if he did, he wouldn’t even think it was his fault. Kadin didn’t mention Goffman, but she fully acknowledged how the show really tanked.
She states how Season 1 was mapped out. To me, it seems like she’s alluding that the second season wasn’t mapped out as well, if at all.
…I…think in season 1, we knew in the pilot, he was going to have a son who’s older; we knew all of that. And in season 2 – I think season 2 of a lot of shows is harder. I’m not making excuses because we definitely lost our way…We were actually all in the room today – [SLEEPY HOLLOW co-creators] Alex [Kurtzman] and Len [Wiseman], and I were there with the co-EPs, and [new showrunner] Clifton Campbell, and it’s so much fun there, and there’s so much great stuff. I think fans will be happy. I think towards the end [of season 2], fans got happy again, because they realized we course-corrected.
This news about them being back in the Sleepy Hollow saddle is important, since word on the street is Kadin, Wiseman and Kurtzman were working on Scorpion, while Goffman was left to run Sleepy Hollow in their stead.
A renewed focus on Abbie and Ichabod’s internal lives: Kadin said the goal for S3 is to bring that S1 magic back, and that includes fleshing out Abbie and Ichabod beyond just their Witness mission. As we saw at the end of Season 1, Ichabod was beginning to deal with his issues with his father, the promise of Abbie learning about her father was in the air, and there was still plenty Abbie and Jenny needed to talk about. But even with the Mama episode, much of these plotpoints were basically forgotten about under Goffman’s leadership. Kadin, Kurtzman and Wiseman plan on bringing the humanity back to the show. As she said:
…Obviously, there are changes in the sense Katrina’s not there, Henry’s not there, Irving’s not there. But we really want to bring back the fun in the relationship between Abbie and Crane. I think the big focus is going to be, how do we get back to what people love? How do we give Abbie a real journey? How do we give Crane a real journey? How are those things both independent and complimentary of one another?
An expanded world: Kadin also discusses creating a much more expansive world for Sleepy Hollow, since the entire world should be affected by the Apocalypse, right?
I don’t know what kind of expansion Kadin and the team have in mind, but I’m hoping it at least involves a trip to New York, or, to give Ichabod some closure, a trip to Ichabod’s hometown in England. That way, we could expand the world as well as get on Ichabod’s father issues at the same time.
A new Big Bad: With the promise of another midseason finale coming in S3, this means that we’ll have a prominent Big Bad. Kadin states that, unlike in S2, which squandered the awesomeness that was Moloch, S3’s villain will be well-established.
…[Y]ou’ll definitely have a very clear understanding of there being a Big Bad. Obviously, the plan will be a little bit more of the history of what that [big bad] is up to, but we’ll peel that back as we go.
More Jenny and new characters: Naturally, we can expect more Jenny, since we need to keep Abbie and Jenny’s relationship strong. But we are also going to see some new people!
But don’t worry about another iteration of Hawley and somesuch who don’t really add anything productive to the Ichabbie and Abbie-Jenny-Ichabod dynamics.
I think right now we’re focused on how to mine the Crane and Abbie relationship as much as possible. That’s going to be the focus. And then before we bring people into their lives, make sure it’s people we have a really good reason to bring in.
I still have my money on bringing in Abbie’s once-frozen relative.
What do you think of this news? Give me your comments below! Also, continue the conversation on Facebook and Twitter; I’d love to hear what you have to say.
Credit: David Johnson/FOX
Julian 