Farewell, Sleepy Hollow

"...my soul is not content to have lost her. 

Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer, 
and these are the last lines I will write for her."

Pablo Neruda, "Poem XX," Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, 

Dearest Sleepy Hollow,

I loved you with all my heart. You know I did. You inspired me to an entirely new expression of my craft. You made me laugh, and think, and dream. In a way, you saved my life, and you'll never even know why. I made wonderful new friends because of you. I became acquainted with, then fell in love with, some marvelous actors and writers because of you. You changed my life irrevocably for the better. Even when you disappointed me, behaved erratically, abused me with promises you had no intention of fulfilling, still I loved you. 

But it's over between us. This is good-bye. I love the show I fell in love with and always will.  But you are no longer that show, and I need to move on.

Sleepy Hollow is a show set in Sleepy Hollow, New York. It's a show about the two Witnesses foretold in the Book of the Revelation tasked with stopping the apocalypse. The Witnesses are named Grace Abigail Mills and Ichabod Crane. Through them, Sleepy Hollow is, on a deeper level, a show about two very different people who become best friends, soul-mates really, and who appear to those around them (and many viewers) to be deeply, heroically, in love. It's cast includes people of color in starring roles (at one time 3/5^ths of them). At its best it's been great; at its worst, it always shown such great potential.

Abbie Mills is dead, and Nicole Beharie has moved on to other acting projects. She's not coming back. The show has moved its setting to Washington D.C., which means at the very least they should change the name to Mr. Crane Goes to Washington. He's going to have a new partner, a new Witness, whom I think has just been blessed with Abbie Mills' immortal soul, which I still don't understand. What she or he is a Witness to, I don't know, since the apocalypse from the Book of the Revelation hasn't been seen since the middle of the second season. Jenny Mills, Abbie's sister, will be around. Ichabod Crane, a revolutionary who hates the idea of a Federal police force, is going to work for the government.

Whatever you are now, Sleepy Hollow, and whatever you will be, with the exception of wonderful Jenny, you are not this. And even if you prove yourself something wonderful in this new incarnation, pardon the irony, you betrayed my trust in becoming something I don't even recognize anymore. I can't invest in a story that I can't trust, no matter how good you are.

I have nothing against the new cast members of Sleepy Hollow. More than 90% of all actors are unemployed at any given moment; it's hard for me to judge anyone for wanting a job. I expect the new cast members will acquit themselves admirably with whatever they're given.

I have nothing against Tom Mison. I adore him as an actor and I admire him as a person. I will very much miss his portrayal of Ichabod Crane and very much look forward to watching him in anything else he does. I think Lyndie Greenwood is awesome, and wish her the very best.

But I have to accept that Sleepy Hollow will never fulfill its potential. It's time to let go and move on.

I would love be able to say, as Neruda does in “Letter From the Road” that this letter ends with no sadness. But it does. A profound sadness--ridiculous, really--for the death of a relationship between a woman and a TV show. But this is not just any show. It's the show that made me want to write for television. And despite my terrible sorrow at what it has become, that is still my calling and will soon be my job.

So for that, I must thank you, Sleepy Hollow, not only for inspiring me, but for teaching me what never, ever, ever to do to a faithful audience. I will do my best, once working in the industry, to use any and all power I have to keep such a travesty from happening again.

Peace out.