By Monique
I’ve been seeing some worry about Sleepy Hollow, especially since the ratings ticked down to the lowest they’ve ever been.
The fear can be summed up in this tweet by Shadow and Act:
Last night’s “Sleepy Hollow” episode fell 14% from previous week to series low – double what it fell week before. Headed for cancellation?
— Shadow And Act (@shadowandact) February 10, 2015
However, The Cancellation Bear still has Sleepy Hollow at “Likely to Be Renewed.” But the ratings,as the Cancellation Bear points out, could signify that even though Sleepy Hollow still has a good chance at being renewed, the show could come back in a much more limited run. The Cancellation Bear’s residence, TV By the Numbers, has a post by Bill Gorman references notes from fellow TV By the Numbers writer Tom Shaw:
For Sleepy Hollow, while ratings have dropped this eyar, it’s Fall ratings were still above the Fox average. I’d not that New Girl wasn’t renewed either, and it would take literally every Fox Spring show succeeding to put this in any danger. That said, how Fox’s Spring does will likely determine how many episodes Sleepy Hollow comes back for next season.
It would seem that some of Shaw’s opinion still stands, despite his ramped-up urgency displayed in his latest tweets:
When Fox Production heads took over Fox the network, I wasn’t expecting Sleepy Hollow to get caught in the housecleaning, but now…
— Tom Shaw (@TVTomShaw) February 10, 2015
@matthewmingo Fox has room – 10 M-F hours with just Gotham/Empire/NG/MP/1+Kitchens confirmed so far. But incentives exist to kill it:
— Tom Shaw (@TVTomShaw) February 10, 2015
@matthewmingo If cancel SH now, they can claim Reilly killed it by only ordering 13 episodes last year and stopping any momentum.
— Tom Shaw (@TVTomShaw) February 10, 2015
@matthewmingo If they renew it for one more ~13 ep season in the low 1s, it now becomes their fault.
— Tom Shaw (@TVTomShaw) February 10, 2015
@matthewmingo On top of that, in May they can go to The Following, etc. and say “Look, we killed Fox shows too.”
— Tom Shaw (@TVTomShaw) February 10, 2015
@DanielWalsh1294 Prob comes down to Fox reality hrs in Fall. MasterJr, HellKitch, 3+hours of some real. competition? Gone. Less? Who knows.
— Tom Shaw (@TVTomShaw) February 10, 2015
(“Reilly” refers to Kevin Reilly, the former Fox head who greenlit Sleepy Hollow and Almost Human.)
So it seems like it comes down to if the new Fox heads really want to keep it around. Dana Walden and Gary Newman have already given indication that they really do love the show and the leads, and have even gone as far as to give possible solutions to fix the show going into the next season. To me, it would seem kind of strange for the heads to give this kind of hope just to yank it away (unless deals can’t be reached or something like that). In short, I think there’s a chance for it to come back solely on the good graces it earned during the first season and because the execs actually like the show. I’d be more worried if Walden and Newman didn’t like it, which seemed to be the case with Almost Human. It wasn’t a show they’d greenlit in the first place, but the cancellation seemed to support the idea that Fox thought it was a show that involved much more time than Fox was willing to give.
However, I’m not going to lie and say I’m completely calm about Sleepy Hollow‘s fate. If I were to guess, I’d say that Fox is more than likely going to renew it, but to go along with the Cancellation Bear article, I think that if they do renew it, it’ll come back along the lines of an event series, which is how it should have stayed to begin with. The first season was only 13 episodes, but Fox (during the Reilly) reign, got too greedy and renewed the show for a full second season. We see now that Sleepy Hollow‘s storytelling doesn’t mesh well at all with full seasons, since there’s the slippery slope of it turning into a full-out soap opera (and an uninteresting one at that).
If Walden and Newman want to be seen as the “saviors” for the series, then I would think they’d renew it with “event series” status. This way, it could be a contained story like Agent Carter—a series that has deft storytelling and high production values with a shorter season as a trade-off. A smaller season will also allow the writers to focus primarily on what matters, which is Ichabod and Abbie saving the day. No maternal guilt or male guilt or whatever. Just saving the day and getting stuff done. All action and snark, with no time for scenarios that don’t make sense. The writers would be forced to use an economy of words and storylines, which will make for a tighter season all around.
As I’ve written before, the longer season paved the way for Sleepy Hollow‘s ruin, along with other storytelling factors. There was just a lack of focus, and to me, some of that dealt with the added pressure of writing for five extra episodes. The thought was that drama created by Katrina, Abraham and Henry would sustain the show throughout the season, but that could have been seen as either creative desperation or laziness. With a smaller season, the writing team will be able to zone in on what really matters and what really gets the fanbase going.
Julian 