'Sleepy Hollow' Could Make Some Changes If Season 5 Happens

Time travel is all the rage in TV right now, but never forget the show that was ahead of the current trend — FOX's Sleepy Hollow, which is currently in its fourth season. Will Sleepy Hollow return for Season 5, buoyed by the many shows that feature a main character who's traveled through time? To be honest, things aren't looking good for Sleepy Hollow. The show has been struggling mightily in the ratings for years now, and according to the FOX presidents at 2017's TCAs, this season was supposed to help boost those numbers. Unfortunately, it did not. According to TVBytheNumbers, the Sleepy Hollow Season 4 ratings have been pretty low, barely cracking a half-million viewers in the coveted 18-49 viewing demographic, a far cry from the show's earlier seasons where the flirtatious, time-traveling interplay between Abbie and Ichabod Crane was enough to make the show one of network TV's most popular series. And speaking of Abbie, the show has never really recovered from the loss of Nicole Beharie in that role.

Ever since Abbie died at the end of Season 3, the show has struggled to find another lead that could stand up to Tom Mison's winsome performance as Ichabod Crane, the former 1780s spy who worked with her for the first three years of Sleepy Hollow. Whether because of that major change or not, the show is struggling now. So if Sleepy Hollow does return next fall, perhaps it could make some strategic changes in order to potentially turn the show around, bring it out of that ratings rut, and succeed once more.

Bring Abbie Back

Yes, it's unlikely, since Nicole Beharie gave a pretty firm goodbye when she was killed off, but if they did manage to pull it off, certainly fans would be thrilled to tune back in to find out how she managed to return.

Move To Another Network

If Sleepy Hollow doesn't have the ratings to succeed on FOX, perhaps it could move to another place, either a FOX subsidiary like FX or move to an online service like Hulu, which has rescued some series before. (It already streams old seasons there!)

Adapt Another Story

The show's cross between a mystery-of-the-week detective show and a time-traveling supernatural drama is one of it's best qualities, don't get me wrong, but the show could use a few tweaks. Maybe by going for a longer mystery that spans multiple episodes or even a whole season, the series can move beyond the Headless Horseman and adapt another famous work of literature from a similar period, like some Edgar Allan Poe short stories.

Go Back In Time

In Season 2, Abbie traveled back in time, and maybe the show could pull a similar move in Season 5. Maybe they could even have two parallel storylines, with one in the past and another in the present. It's certainly a popular aspect of shows like This Is Us. And the show's futuristic elements could even make for three timelines that all exist at the same time in the same season — a three-timeline-tiered mystery could be the stunt that gets the show back on top.

Just Make It All In The Future

The future storyline could be really interesting, and Sleepy Hollow could make a change from a twist on the normal procedural to a full-on post-apocalyptic fantasy world. I'd be here for it.