Sleepy Hollow's pilot appears to be a success, despite some critics' grumblings. The episode aired last night, Monday 16th September, on Fox.

Tom Mison
Tom Mison stars in Sleepy Hollow as Ichabod Crane.

In Fox's new take on Washington Irving's classic tale, Ichabod Crane awakes after two hundred years to find the town of Sleepy Hollow facing the same headless horseman he encountered centuries before. Crane teams up with police officer Abbie Mills in order to solve, what the police assume are, a series of grisly murders and not the work of one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. From the trailer it appears to be the majority of the humour is based on Crane catching up with two centuries of technological and cultural changes. 

Tom Mison plays Crane and stars opposite Nicole Beharie (Shame), who plays Officer Mills. Sleepy Hollow also stars Katia Winter (Dexter) and Orlando Jones (The Chicago 8). Mison will be best known to British viewers for his appearances in such costume dramas as Parade's End and Lost in Austen, and in the films One Day and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. 

Watch the trailer for Sleepy Hollow:

Critics have been largely positive about the show's pilot episode, although some have read perhaps too deeply into what the producers are trying to do. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has been adapted by numerous film and television production companies over the years. This is one of the reasons many critics seem unwilling to view the series with much enthusiasm, for instance Glenn Garvin of the Miami Herald described the pilot as "less like a show than a garage sale of used story pitches."

 Nicole Beharie
Nicole Beharie stars opposite Mison.

The most recent adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was Tim Burton's 1999 film starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci. Other notable adaptations include numerous attempts to make the story into a musical (none of which have proved terribly successful); Disney's The Adventures of Ichabod Crane and Mr. Toad, an animated film narrated by Bing Crosby; and the earliest film adaptation of the story, in 1922, the silent movie The Headless Horseman.

However, despite negative reviews, The Hollywood Reporter's critic seems to sum up how the majority of critics feel: that Sleepy Hollow is "fun, it's entertaining, it's got some scares and some action and plenty of secrets to unveil." 

Sleepy Hollow will air on Fox at 9/8pm. 

 Katie Winters & Orlando Jones
Katie Winters & Orlando Jones also star in Sleepy Hollow.