"Sleepy Hollow" -- How you try my patience!

[revdorothyl]

Some weeks, I get a good chuckle out of "Sleepy Hollow" . . . when they stay far, far away from anything I've ever actually studied seriously.

Sometimes, they even seem to learn from their early mistakes -- for instance I've noticed that they've been careful to say "Revelation" when speaking of the last book of the New Testament instead of the incorrect "Revelations" after that first, teeth-grinding episode.

But just when I thought it was safe to sit back and enjoy the silliness, an episode comes along like last night's, where suddenly they think that people in the 1580's were still speaking MIDDLE ENGLISH instead of Elizabethan English (think closer to SHAKESPEARE, people, not CHAUCER -- you're at least a hundred years too late for Middle English as common speech!). Ack!

*Grrr*

How you task me, you silly show, you! :(

Comments

[jerusha]

LOL! A good friend, who is a huge colonial history buff, just couldn't watch the show. It was too irritating. Me? I laugh hysterically. I'm pretty sure that they thought, "Oh, hey! Middle English sounds SUPER COOL. Let's use it!" and then just went to town.

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Heh! Probably so! :)

[sunshineali.livejournal.com]

Hi Dorothy, I've been watching it and, I too, agree that it's kind of silly in it's fun. I'm not that thrilled with the devilish crap. I don't normally watch horror stuff like "Coven" etc. it's just not my thing. I realize this is sappy fictional stuff, but it still is making me just a tad uncomfortable. I love, love, love Ichabod and the gal (can't remember her name at the moment) but I haven't fully bought into the show yet and may not stick with it. :)

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the demon/horror stuff makes me real uncomfortable (perhaps because -- unlike BtVS -- it's asking you to be seriously afraid and feel completely overwhelmed by the evil forces arrayed against you, rather than strongly emphasizing the human capacity to mock, to fight, and to triumph over nightmare creatures that take themselves way too seriously). I don't like getting hit over the head, week after week, with horror stuff that serves no higher metaphorical purpose other than to be horrifying and debilitating.

What I do enjoy at times is the character stuff (Ichabod and the Mills sisters, and especially Abby), and the 'man out of time' comments that can be very witty or amusing at times (like a week ago, when the episode opened with what turned out to be Ichabod reducing the Northstar/Onstar operator to romantic tears as he told her his tale and urged her to keep hope alive for genuine love).

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

That had me puzzled too...

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

I know, right? How do the writers remember enough from their college lit course to know about Middle English and still confuse it with English in the lifetime of Shakespeare? Or did they simply assume that none of their viewers would know the difference (which is pretty darn insulting)? *fumes*

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the episode, but it's possible someone who did know his or her history drafted the script, and then it fell into the hands of a committee.

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Ah, the dreaded committee! Could very well be.

How else do you have the settlers of the lost colony of Roanoke from the 1580s speaking Chaucerian Middle English from nearly two hundred years earlier?

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

Maybe that was part of the demonic plot. Like the Tower of Babel in a time warp.