When most people hear the words “Sleepy Hollow,” they either have a flashback to high school English class, or they picture the 1999 Tim Burton film. Now FOX is hoping to tempt viewers with a bit of time travel meets police procedural.

After the Sleepy Hollow trailer debuted last spring, it definitely caught my attention. It was a part of my fall maybe list. After a recent phone conference with Co-Creators/Executive Producers, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, it definitely moved to my must watch list. It wasn’t just that Kurtzman and Orci seem to create gold with whatever they touch: Fringe, Hawaii 5-0, Star Trek, and Transformers, just to name a few of their projects. Aside from their impressive credentials, the show has a unique concept that the showrunners are wildly enthusiastic about.

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After being resurrected and pulled two and a half centuries through time, Ichabod Cranne (Tom Mison) finds himself in modern-day Sleepy Hollow, where he quickly realizes that evil has awoken with him. When Sheriff August Corbin (guest star Clancy Brown) is killed by the infamous Headless Horseman, Ichabod forms an unlikely bond with Detective Abbie Mills (Nicole Beharie), a young cop who has her own childhood supernatural experiences. Together, the two embark on a mission to stop evil and uncover mysteries dating back to the founding of our country. Captain FRANK IRVING (Orlando Jones) hesitates to believe Ichabod’s tales of supernatural evil. But when Ichabod’s former wife, Katrina (Katia Winter), provides clues about impending evil, they all begin to realize that this town is anything but sleepy in the all-new “Pilot” series premiere episode of Sleepy Hollow.

So why should you give Sleepy Hollow your time this Fall? Here are the top five reasons.

1: The cast

One of the priorities of Kurtzman and Orci was that the cast be comprised of relative unknowns, or at least actors that were not widely associated with a particular, iconic role. They looked for the best actors possible, and kept open minds.

They hadn’t intended at all to cast a U.K. actor, who would use his natural accent, in the leading role of Ichabod Crane; however, that all changed when Tom Mison walked in the door. Realizing that, “many who fought to establish this country were recently arrived from the U.K.” they changed their initial concept of who their version of Ichabod Crane was.

The showrunners also had high praise for Nicole Beharie, the detective who eventually comes to believe that Ichabod is from the past, stating, “With Nicole, you have a really strong woman, who when you are playing a detective, particularly as a woman, you either are going to embrace the fact that it’s kind of a man’s world you are jumping into or you’re going to ignore it. With Nicole, we are able to actually play the complexity of a little bit of an underdog, who is able to keep her own, she’s able to hold her own around her peers, and who, in meeting Ichabod Crane, in Tom Mison, has a sympathy and a connection to a guy who everyone else thinks is crazy.”

2: Multi-genre, crossover show

When asked to describe the show, the showrunners initially described it as “horror meets police procedural.” When further asked how they were going to tackle horror in on network TV before 10:00pm, they stated it was more of a psychological kind of horror.

There is a certain amount of blood, it involves the headless horseman after-all, but much of it is down to wondering what’s around the next corner, is everyone who and what they seem, and can you trust everything you thought you knew as true.

3: Historical flashbacks

You don’t need to be a history buff to enjoy this series, but if you are, there is an extra sense of satisfaction. They tell much of our story in the past with drop-ins by characters like Paul Revere, and events like The Boston Tea Party.

The way Alex Orsini explains it, “On top of the cases of the week, the solutions to the modern day story is to look to the past, and he idea being that if you don’t learn from the past, you’re doomed to repeat it. So, we get to do flashbacks, we get to tell stories over different centuries and I think anybody who loves genre would feel that delicious prospect.”

4:The credentials and passion of the showrunners

Anyone who was a fan of Fringe knows the attention to detail and layers that inspired a passionate following. From the call, it was evident that the showrunners are dying to do this story. When asked, why, they stated that it was a young talent who pitched the idea that they thought was brilliant and fresh.

“A young and very talented man named Phil Iscove, who at the time was an assistant at UTA, came in and said, ‘You know, I had this idea of doing a modern day Sleepy Hollow and maybe the way to get into modern day is to fuse it with a lot of the ideas in Rip Van Winkle, and you know the idea would be that Ichabod Crane was put to sleep in some way and woke up 250 years after the Revolutionary War,’ and we said, ‘Where do we sign up?’”

5: Each episode will be of standalone quality

One of the shows that both showrunners talk highly of is Homeland, not only the writing and cast, but the fact that each show feels like it’s a season finale or a motion picture. They wanted to bring that level of excitement and closure to Sleepy Hollow.

They stated, “The key is to give the audience that experience but also to make sure that they are just not lost in story telling that is so heavily serialized that if you miss an episode, you just can’t catch up to it. So, we are very consciously making sure that each episode is somewhat of a standalone and if there is some serialized element to it, making sure that we reset the things that the audience needs to know at the top of the show, so that they can move forward from there.”

Sleepy Hollow debuts this Monday on Fox. Will you be giving it a try?