SLEEPY HOLLOW: Screener and Q & A Panel [FOX, NYCC 2015]

Fox’s Sleepy Hollow screener and Q & A NYCC panel. The Sleepy Hollow panel being declared the official end, to this year’s New York Comic Con, was no surprise – its venue, the Main Stage, could have been called the center of the Universe, for all the grief it kept giving to get into. Thing is, the Main Stage screener finale really wasn’t much of a screener – it was a rerun of a previously aired episode. The disappointment was audible enough, but it seemed like the audience wasn’t about to leave (on account of having gone through the ordeal of getting in, and all).

For their trouble, ‘Sleepheads’ seemed happy enough to have Zach Appelman, Lyndie Greenwood, and Nikki Reed take questions from the audience (writer/ producer, Raven Metzner, was there too, just so you know). With the mischievous specter of Tom Mison joining the proceedings – in the form of a text message-turned battle, with Zach – I think the crowd was left satisfied with this closing act.

To his credit, Zach read Tom’s original message in his best impression of Tom’s English accent – and didn’t show us his pecs (in defiance of Tom’s half-joking instruction).

Zach made allowance for his character, Joe Corbin, to officially become part of the core team; so long as he remains mindful that the girls (Lyndie’s Jenny Mills, and Nicole Beharie’s Abbie Mills) are the only family he has, and vice-versa.

Nikki, while considering Betsy Ross as having been reimagined as an arch-type, noted that a lack of firsthand accounts allowed room for creative freedom, in interpreting the figure for the show. For anyone interested, Betsy did not do what fans may have hoped she did, to British General Howe. A DVD extra made it official: she had left him bound & gagged.

Lyndie chimed in, on the matter of historical accuracy, claiming that she got a lot of her American history from the show, being a Canadian foreigner, and all.

That was as good a cue as any for Tom texting to call Zach’s accent impression a disgrace. At the audience’s prompting, Zach replied that Tom should have been there.

Raven was sketchy on certain questions, of course (responding to a return of the Kindred with a fingers crossed wait-and-see answer, while dismissing the timely return of the Headless Horseman as unlikely). He had secrets of his own to keep, so no word on how long the character of Pandora (Shannyn Sossamon) will be kept around.

He would ultimately tease that Abbie will be coming under fire, at work, Ichabod will face an old nemesis, and while he may not go back to his original bad-ass self, there will be challenges ahead to keep him on his toes. Ichabod Crane has not been reduced to comic relief. A cast member will also switch sides (that one seemed to get to the audience); but the good news is that if Team Crane ever goes road-tripping, NYC is at the top of the show writing pool’s list.

There was also the need to reassure fans of both Sleepy Hollow & Bones, that their upcoming crossover will maintain the integrity of both shows. The Sleepyhead crew has been in touch with the Boneheads from the start, so the interests of both fan bases are covered.

He admitted that an X-Files crossover would be “awesome,” as the series was definitely an influence. He encouraged #SleepyFiles as a way to hype SleepyBones – pretty much declaring the Bones crossover a feasibility study, to be determined by viewer response (hint, hint).

BTW, Tom texted back – Zach couldn’t share his text, publicly.

All-in-all, it was a pretty low key way to wrap up a slightly masochist dream of an assignment. If anything, the closest ring-out-the-Con moment came before the Q & A, when the Main Stage social media videographer (I may have just made up that title, yes) decided to shoot herself a farewell send-off, utilizing the crowd, to the tune of DJ Khaled’s ‘All I Do is Win.’ I still can’t get that song out of my head; but at least I can associate it with the end of this year’s Con.

Some mash-up memories – star panelists, bit of writer/ artist hero worship, slow-mo highlight reel of dodging through crowds, Cosplay girls, Cosplay girls, Cosplay girls – set to that song, and all of it was win.

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