I'm writing this after seeing the pilot, and at least for a beginning it's nice. You like the characters, most of what's going on makes sense, and the characters are not making too many irrational decisions. In fact, the back story generally provides a fair degree of consistency for a series that is unabashedly supernatural. The Ichabod Crane character doesn't do too badly anachronism wise, which is refreshing after the number of times time shifted characters know way too much.
Abbie Mills plays the modern policewoman who has the supernatural shoved down her throat. She does a credible job with the character, and there is some back story presented to make her reactions believable. The problem is what happens concerning law enforcement types in the series. It will have almost anyone remotely familiar or associated with that field scratching their head in puzzlement. Some of the most fantastical moments come from the writers' near total ignorance of police procedures. The Headless Horseman is more believable than certain police procedures and interactions portrayed in the script.
To continue the bad part of it. The series probably needed a two hour pilot episode. Many of the plot devices or ideas are pushing the boundaries of the usual supernatural background many such series rely on. The issue is that when they are deviating from it, there's not quite enough info provided to figure out if it is sloppy writing or is it going to turn out to be a clever twist on the usual supernatural fare.
*SPOILER ALERT* Some of these inconsistencies are vaguely grating, like having "Death" as the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse an evil or demonic being. If you bother to read your Revelations the horsemen are sent by upstairs to start the Apocalypse, not the downstairs fellow. This drives other issues such as having him able to enter consecrated ground – either he's demonic, and he cannot or he's not demonic, and he can. Death made physical would still be something to be feared, but there IS a difference between terrifying, and evil. This is probably the most glaring example, but there are several. It's still an enjoyable program but I'll have to reserve judgment until there are a few more episodes under my belt.
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UPDATE: Well, the season finale is over. The series exceeded my expectations in one area. The main characters were developed nicely, and were consistently scripted and solidly acted. One secondary character was somewhat over-the-top IMHO, but if that was my only complaint I would up my rating to 8 stars.
Sadly the story telling fell into the typical Hollywood Urban Fantasy Tripe. For some reason, and it is not isolated to this series, the script writers felt they simply HAD to rewrite two thousand plus years of Biblical Apocrypha, Jewish Mysticism, and Ceremonial Magic. I don't know why this happens so often. It's really not that hard to research, and in most of the instances (often several in an episode) there really was no compelling reason to change it. In fact in several instances it would have improved the story line.
I don't know if it's because the script writers/director think viewers are stupid, they just cannot resist the temptation to screw with it, or they are just lazy. Since what they are ignoring includes Catholic theology (Purgatory), the Book of Revelations (the horseman theme), or Kabala (Judaism) as well as all the mangled magical concepts – that's over 50% of the population. The Harry Potter series shows you can do it correctly, so why not? Whatever the case, it significantly detracts from the storyline. That's why I'm subtracting a star.
Abbie Mills plays the modern policewoman who has the supernatural shoved down her throat. She does a credible job with the character, and there is some back story presented to make her reactions believable. The problem is what happens concerning law enforcement types in the series. It will have almost anyone remotely familiar or associated with that field scratching their head in puzzlement. Some of the most fantastical moments come from the writers' near total ignorance of police procedures. The Headless Horseman is more believable than certain police procedures and interactions portrayed in the script.
To continue the bad part of it. The series probably needed a two hour pilot episode. Many of the plot devices or ideas are pushing the boundaries of the usual supernatural background many such series rely on. The issue is that when they are deviating from it, there's not quite enough info provided to figure out if it is sloppy writing or is it going to turn out to be a clever twist on the usual supernatural fare.
*SPOILER ALERT* Some of these inconsistencies are vaguely grating, like having "Death" as the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse an evil or demonic being. If you bother to read your Revelations the horsemen are sent by upstairs to start the Apocalypse, not the downstairs fellow. This drives other issues such as having him able to enter consecrated ground – either he's demonic, and he cannot or he's not demonic, and he can. Death made physical would still be something to be feared, but there IS a difference between terrifying, and evil. This is probably the most glaring example, but there are several. It's still an enjoyable program but I'll have to reserve judgment until there are a few more episodes under my belt.
=====================================================================
UPDATE: Well, the season finale is over. The series exceeded my expectations in one area. The main characters were developed nicely, and were consistently scripted and solidly acted. One secondary character was somewhat over-the-top IMHO, but if that was my only complaint I would up my rating to 8 stars.
Sadly the story telling fell into the typical Hollywood Urban Fantasy Tripe. For some reason, and it is not isolated to this series, the script writers felt they simply HAD to rewrite two thousand plus years of Biblical Apocrypha, Jewish Mysticism, and Ceremonial Magic. I don't know why this happens so often. It's really not that hard to research, and in most of the instances (often several in an episode) there really was no compelling reason to change it. In fact in several instances it would have improved the story line.
I don't know if it's because the script writers/director think viewers are stupid, they just cannot resist the temptation to screw with it, or they are just lazy. Since what they are ignoring includes Catholic theology (Purgatory), the Book of Revelations (the horseman theme), or Kabala (Judaism) as well as all the mangled magical concepts – that's over 50% of the population. The Harry Potter series shows you can do it correctly, so why not? Whatever the case, it significantly detracts from the storyline. That's why I'm subtracting a star.