‘Sleepy Hollow’ nets two-hour finale, ‘The Following’ season 2 time period premiere pushed back

Let’s start here with what may or may not be good news for Fox, depending on how you look at it: The network has decided to hand “Sleepy Hollow” a full two hours in order to end their first season on Monday, January 20. In making this move, they are showing that they are clearly confident enough in the show to give it that much of a stake in their lineup. However, at the same time that means that you’re effectively only getting 12 weeks worth of episodes this season. “Sleepy Hollow’ is using that 13-episode model, hoping that it can tell stronger stories without having to stretch them over 22 episodes.

Thanks to this announcement, there is another change coming for “The Following.” Fox has shifted the time-period premiere of the show back to Monday, January 27 at its standard 9:00 p.m. eastern time. This means that there is now going to be a longer wait of eight days following the show’s post-NFL Championship Game premiere on January 19. We’re not sure that is the best idea, but maybe they are worried about viewers not having time to watch two episodes in two days. That has, after all, seemingly been one of the problems hurting “Almost Human.”

This is the second interesting little schedule note that Fox has pulled out today, after they have already announced that “Dads” will see its order reduced from its originally-planned 22 episodes to 19, thus putting it much more firmly in the cancellation crosshairs. Luckily, “Sleepy Hollow’ has already been renewed, and is popular enough seemingly to be on its way to many more years of mystery and intrigue for our heroes.

If you want to support “Sleepy Hollow” in the Best New Show division of our Best of 2013 Awards series, just be sure to click here and cast your vote. The polls will stay open until Friday, December 20, so be sure to have your voice heard.

Photo: Fox