Tonight we witnessed the collision of two worlds we never expected: Sleepy Hollow and Bones. It was a fun two-hour adventure for sure, but there are a few things we still don’t fully understand.
Let us begin with the one thing we didn’t like and get the negativity out of the way, then we can talk about why we loved this epic two-hour special.
Which universe are we supposed to be in?
We’re all for mashups and combos of our favorite fandoms, especially when it comes to fan fiction. However, this isn’t fan fiction; this is canon material that has set real and strict universe guidelines. At least, that’s how we feel as Bones fans.
Even when Cyndi Lauper guest starred as Avalon Harmonia, Angela’s psychic, the show managed to pull in some mystical eeriness while still ensuring it followed the normal laws of science in our world, and most characters brushed it off anyway. Those who believed in the legitimacy of Avalon were allowed to, but those who didn’t were allowed to shrug it off.
So that’s our only issue with this cross-over — when you put Ichabod Crane next to Temperance Brennan, you’re disrupting the rules of the universe that Bones has created. Angela had discovered that Ichabod’s handwriting was the very same handwriting as the letter from George Washington — something we know is legitimate, but Angela and Brennan question it, and rightly so. How could this document possibly exist in their world? It can’t.
And so with that plot, especially when Angela brought up the handwriting, we almost felt like the fourth wall was broken in a way. It was so obviously fictitious and ridiculous for Angela or Brennan to even consider believing that Ichabod was 200 years old. We’re glad they just made the assumption that it was Ichabod’s ancestor who wrote the note to keep it “normal” for Bones, but overall this particular crossover didn’t make sense.
Everything else? Perfect!
Other than that one major gripe we had with the consistency for Bones‘ universe, we absolutely loved everything else!
What we particularly loved was how each hour of the special was still specific to the show’s time slot. So Bones was all about solving the modern murder and had very little involvement from Ichabod or Abbie, while Sleepy Hollow’s hour revolved around Pandora, the supernatural, and only had Booth and Brennan appear for a small side arc. If you were fans of one show but not the other, it was easy to tune out the other show’s elements and focus on your show’s story.
And when it came down to Sleepy Hollow we loved that even though this was a crossover event, they managed to make huge strides in their normal plot, like figuring out that Abbie’s sister was getting involved with a criminal mastermind and having to explain why to her boss.
Overall this crossover event was fantastic! There was just enough crossover to make things interesting but little enough where each show still stood as its own and the guest stars didn’t distract too heavily from the main characters in each. That said, now that it’s done, we’re happy we get to live in our own very separate Sleepy Hollow and Bones worlds from now on.