History Main / OutOfGenreExperience

* ''Literature/ExpeditionaryForce'': ''Homefront'' is very different from the rest of the series due to the fact it is less focused on humans being utterly overwhelmed by extraterrestrial forces and needing to rely on Joel Bishop being a GuileHero or Skippy being [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens Sufficiently Advanced]]. Instead, it is full of big action scenes where the protagonists slug it out with the enemy in open battle. Skippy is also sidelined for most of the story, unable to help the others and cursed with a human who can't come up with elaborate plans on the fly.

* The horror series ''Twisted Tales'' lived up to its name with plenty of stories about murderous lunatics, creepy monsters, and racism of the most cold-blooded and gruesome sort. There are two exceptions that eschew gory horror and instead aim for tragedy: The first is "Roomers" a bittersweet character study of a quiet old man who forms a strange bond with a spider in his apartment as he lives out his final days in solitude. Then comes the last full-length tale, "If She Dies", a very potent tear-jerker story of a man who helps a sweet young orphan's ghost find peace after her untimely death in a fire, and is rewarded for this kindness when [[spoiler:her spirit finds a new home in the body of his daughter, who'd been left brain-dead from an accident and was scheduled to be taken off life support.]]

* The first half of Laserdance's ''The Guardian of Forever'' was their usual synthdance, but the second half completely abandoned the style and switched to progressive trance. It was thought that this was going to be a permanent GenreShift, but they returned to form for their final album, ''Laserdance Strikes Back''.

* ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'' is normally a kid's horror series, but "How I Learned to Fly" stands out as the only book in the series that plays out more like a supernatural romantic comedy (Jack learns to fly so he can impress his crush, Mia) and a satire on being famous in America (when Jack and Wilson prove that they can fly, they soon become hounded by obsessed fans, are taken in by the U.S. Army for experiments, and become so popular that they have no private life, which [[AdultFear is actually scarier than any ghost, ghoul, monster, or freaky creature you can name]]).

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'' filler comics often are in different genres, such as [[http://www.sinfest.net/view.php?date=2005-10-10 Baby Sinfest]].
[[/folder]]

* The horror series ''Twisted Tales'' lived up to its name with plenty of stories about murderous lunatics, creepy monsters, and racism of the most cold-blooded and gruesome sort. There are two exceptions that eschew gory horror and instead aim for tragedy: The first is "Roomers" a bittersweet character study of a quiet old man who forms a strange bond with a spider in his apartment as he lives out his final days in solitude. Then comes the final full tale, "If She Dies", a potent tear-jerker story of a man who helps a sweet young orphan's ghost find peace after her untimely death in a fire, and is rewarded for this kindness when [[spoiler:her spirit finds a new home in the body of his daughter, who'd been left brain-dead from an accident and was scheduled to be taken off life support.]]

* ''Film/Moonraker'' was this to the James Bond franchise. It was hardly the first Bond film to add ''some'' science fiction elements but never before had the franchise sent 007 into space and had the big climatic battle sequence fought by astronauts armed with energy weapons reminiscent of ''Franchise/StarWars'', which was not a coincidence as ''A New Hope'' had been released relatively recently. It was a very unsubtle attempt to FollowTheLeader that did the film no favours with critics.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Archer}}'' has "Space Race", the two-part finale of the third season, which stands out for being a full-on ScienceFiction story about a mutiny on a space station and [[spoiler: a plot to colonize Mars]] in a [[WorkCom workplace comedy]] about [[SpyFiction spies]]. Although to be fair, it is a direct spoof of [[Film/{{Moonraker}} a James Bond film.]]

** [[spoiler:Merged Zamasu]] manages be this since while [[spoiler:Goku Black and Future Zamasu were godly beings]], they were still both trained martial artists and fought like one. Merged Zamasu, on the other hand, fights like an RPG final boss with him summoning a Guardian Entity that shoots lightning, raining down energy blasts, and throwing spears that explode when they hit the ground. This is not even getting into his final form that is straight out of a Cosmic Horror Story.

** Interestingly, Morrison fled from this genre-bending as far as he could after a certain point in his run, making the good guys and bad guys as unambiguously traditionally super-hero/super-villain in their morals and adventures, despite still keeping the more exotic outward trappings introduced earlier.

* In the eighth episode of ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist'', Edward becomes very determined to solve the mystery pertaining to a serial killer. Things get very Manga/DetectiveConan-y very fast. Especially funny because the villain in the episode (Barry the Chopper) is voiced by the same actor as Jimmy Kudo in the English dub.

[[folder:Theater]]
* Invoked with ''Theater/DerRosenkavalier''. After composing ''Salome'' and ''Elektra'', two extremely dark tragedies that pushed a lot of boundaries both in terms of story and music and were very popular with the around ten people who could see what he was trying to do, Richard Strauss decided that his next opera was going to be a light, fun crowd-pleaser that would appeal to a broad audience and bring in some much-needed money.

!!Examples:

* ''WesternAnimation/DanVs'', a show focused on wacky revenge schemes, has had two of these:
** "The Dentist" where Dan and Chris fight a dentist supervillain.

* ''WesternAnimation/DanVs'', a show focused on wacky revenge schemes:

** Wild West Town, where the genre jump shouldn't be even remotely difficult to guess.

* Most of ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' is a supernatural-themed show, but any episodes with [[TimeTravel Blendin Blandin]] are much straighter sci-fi.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': Often, due to the show's fondness for parodies.

This trope is often paired with MoodWhiplash, and an ArtShift may kick in to better fit the brief genre change. Episodes that have these experiences usually get a BizarroEpisode reputation and may have either FanonDiscontinuity or CanonDiscontinuity.[[note]]Compare the question above to the "Very Important Corollary" on that page.[[/note]] For a permanent genre change, see GenreShift; when the plot starts out as something unrelated leading up to the switch it's a HalfwayPlotSwitch; and when a work has a chronic case of this trope it's a GenreRoulette. When a non-romance story goes out of focus (either temporarily or permanently) due to a RomanceArc, that's a RomanticPlotTumor. See CourtroomEpisode, NoirEpisode, SuperheroEpisode, CowboyEpisode, and the rest of the {{Episodes}} page for common subtropes. For the same principle applied to video game genres, see UnexpectedGameplayChange.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/ThirtyRock'': There are two episodes that parody RealityTV (especially those on the Bravo! channel) with their {{Main/Show Within a Show}} "Queen of Jordan".
* ''Series/EightSimpleRules'' was a situation comedy, but written as a drama, with drama writers, for the episodes dealing with the main character Paul's death, [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim following the death of his real-life actor]] Creator/JohnRitter.
* ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' was a historical comedy with an emphasis on witty dialogue. [[Recap/BlackadderSS2BlackaddersChristmasCarol Blackadder's Christmas Carol]] throws ghosts into the mix, [[YetAnotherChristmasCarol of course]], and then [[Recap/BlackadderSS3BlackadderBackAndForth Back and Forth]] has Baldrick build an actual ''working time machine''.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** It has [[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E7OnceMoreWithFeeling a hilarious musical episode]]. There's also the episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS5E16TheBody The Body]]" which is a "pure" drama with no supernatural elements until the last few minutes. Really, Buffy's eclectic combination of "Horror-Comedy-Romance-Action-Drama" meant that it felt a little unusual for any individual episode to lean hard on any one genre.
** The episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS3E12Helpless Helpless]]" left Buffy without her super Slayer strength for an episode, preventing her from just beating down the villain as usual. This made the episode have much more of a "horror" feel than any other episode in the series.
** The 7th Season episode "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E7ConversationsWithDeadPeople Conversations With Dead People]]", felt by many to be a stand-out from a mostly lackluster final season, featured three A-plots and one B-plot that feel very surreal, even for this show. Buffy doesn't usually have a long heart-to-heart with a vampire before killing him. Tara supposedly reaches out to Willow from beyond the grave, but indirectly. Dawn spends the entire episode alone in her house, having to fend off a demonic disturbance that, unlike the norm for this show, is played for pure horror instead of action/laughs. Finally, in the B-plot, Spike, who has spent the last four seasons "de-fanged" by a secret branch of the US military and unable to harm humans, walks a lady home...[[spoiler: and bites her, draining her dry]].
* ''Series/{{Community}}'' does this for about a quarter of their episodes. They've covered a lot of ground from mafia movies to TheWestern to ZombieApocalypse.
* The finale of ''Series/CrossingJordan'' has all the characters stranded after a plane crashed, and try to survive in the cold long enough for rescue to find them.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has [[GenreRoulette a lot of range]], but even so has some stories that stick out a mile:
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E8TheChase "The Chase"]], a Dalek story which, uniquely for a Dalek story, is a straight-up comedy story with semi-sympathetic ComicTrio Daleks and almost no horror elements. It has outrageous comedy setpieces, {{Slapstick}}, a FakeAmerican laughing at the Daleks, a subverted JourneyToTheCentreOfTheMind in an amusement park, and a much rarer plot structure to usual as well (the characters go to a different location each episode when almost every other Classic story kept them in the same location). The only other Dalek comedy was [[Recap/DoctorWhoS17E1DestinyOfTheDaleks "Destiny of the Daleks"]], which is an otherwise fairly [[StrictlyFormula formulaic]] Dalek story with jokes added in by a [[WriterRevolt bored]] [[Creator/DouglasAdams script editor]].
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E2MissionToTheUnknown Mission to the Unknown]]", a one-parter (at a time when serials were the norm) BottleEpisode which is still unique in not having either the Doctor or any of the companions in it — it's a kind of extreme LowerDeckEpisode with just [[VictimOfTheWeek victims]] and Daleks. [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot This had a reason behind it.]]
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS3E8TheGunfighters The Gunfighters]]" is the show's only MusicalEpisode, though [[MusicalWorldHypotheses most of the singing is not done by the characters]]. (There has been a stage musical and an audio drama musical in the ExpandedUniverse, though.)
*** In the liner notes for the ''Doctor Who'' Series 7 OST, composer Murray Gold complains that no-one told him "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E7TheRingsOfAkhaten The Rings of Akhaten]]" was going to be a musical.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E4TheHighlanders The Highlanders]]" is the only "pure historical" the Second Doctor ever did before the format was abolished, making it into a bit of a hangover from the Hartnell era. Considering how much his Doctor unbalances the story, it's easy to understand why. On the opposite side of things, "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS4E2TheTenthPlanet The Tenth Planet]]" (Hartnell's last story) is a Hartnell story that feels strongly like proto-Troughton, being that it follows the "Base Under Siege" format associated with that Doctor and features the Cybermen, a villain used heavily in Troughton's tenure.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS5E4TheEnemyOfTheWorld "The Enemy of the World"]], which is suddenly SpyFiction — the Doctor goes undercover like a [[Series/TheAvengers1960s 60s super-spy]], and the villain is an evil human politician TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture with no monsters involved. It's also the only story in the whole season that isn't a [[TheSiege Base Under Siege]].
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS6E3TheInvasion The Invasion]]" is a Troughton story that isn't a base-under-siege, features UNIT, a DiabolicalMastermind VillainWithGoodPublicity and Cybermen invading modern-day London, and feels like a test-run for the Pertwee era (because [[PoorlyDisguisedPilot it was]]).
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS14E3TheDeadlyAssassin The Deadly Assassin]]", the only truly companion-free serial (all other storylines in solo travel periods give the Doctor a temporary companion-figure), meaning the Doctor narrates a lot of the action. It's the only story where every single character, including all the people travelling in the TARDIS, is an alien from the planet where the story is set (Gallifrey), which gives it a weird feel as there are no cultural outsiders. It's also a NoirEpisode.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight Midnight]]" (though it does still involve the Doctor trying to outmanoeuvre aliens in a sci-fi setting) has a ''very'' different tone from most Tenth Doctor episodes; pretty much the entire episode takes place [[BottleEpisode in a single vehicle a little bigger than a bus]], the [[NothingIsScarier alien is never identified or even seen]], the basic moral of the episode is HumansAreBastards when they get scared (shattering the Doctor's usual belief that HumansAreSpecial), the Doctor's usual manner and tactics backfire spectacularly at every turn, and [[spoiler: the Doctor comes as close as he's ever come to dying properly, and has to be saved by a HeroicBystander, who dies without anyone knowing her name]].
** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS35E11HeavenSent Heaven Sent]]", despite being the penultimate episode of Series 9 (and part two of a three-part story), is an OntologicalMystery with a MinimalistCast (other than the Doctor himself, and the mysterious Veil, the only characters to appear are [[spoiler:an imaginary version of [[TheLostLenore Clara]]]] and [[TheCameo a Gallifreyan boy]], and the Doctor carries 90% of the episode on his own). Add to that the extended scenes in the Doctor's [[MentalWorld "Mind TARDIS"]], which are explicitly not actually happening, and you have a very unique episode.
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2016CSTheReturnOfDoctorMysterio "The Return of Doctor Mysterio"]] has the Doctor team up with a superhero in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity in a story with plenty of affectionate nods to the Silver Age of comic books. Needless to say, this is hardly the usual format for ''Doctor Who''.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E1E2Spyfall "Spyfall"]], the Series 12 premiere, goes full-blown TuxedoAndMartini SpyFiction.
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' dabbled in:
** CowboyEpisode ("Home on the Remains", "Different Destinations")
** CourtroomEpisode ("Dream A Little Dream")
** SlasherMovie ("Eat Me")
** Creator/TexAvery cartoon ("Revenging Angel")
* The ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' episode "[[Recap/FireflyE09Ariel Ariel]]", pictured above, has Mal and crew robbing a hospital in the Core while Simon and Jayne smuggle River into the hospital and to an imaging suite so that Simon can find out what the Alliance did to her. Simon, the Serenity's ship's doctor and formerly one of the best trauma surgeons in the Core, poses as a doctor (or rather, a doctor who isn't a wanted criminal) and at one point risks blowing his cover to save a patient's life, and then ''thoroughly'' chews out the guy who was inadequately treating him. It's also something of ADayInTheLimelight for Simon, who spends most of the show ''far'' out of his personal CompetenceZone.
* ''Series/TheHauntingHour: The Series'':
** "The Most Evil Sorcerer" plays out more like a medieval fantasy with supernatural elements.
** "Le Poof de Fromage" plays out like a parody of an alien invasion story.
*** Similarly, "Best Friends Forever," is a parody of zombie stories and the sitcom episode premise of "Kid keeps pet after his parents forbid it and tries to keep the pet under wraps."
** "Headshot", "Terrible Love", "Uncle Howee", and "Near Mint Condition" are more like surreal and/or darkly funny satires [[note]](of fame, teenage love, the over-reliance of television as a babysitter, and obsessive geeks who are into 1980s cartoons and toys respectively)[[/note]] mixed with supernatural elements.
** "Goodwill Toward Men" was more of a ''Twilight Zone''-style morality tale with the only supernatural element being the Christmas angel statue that came to life and cursed Missy's greedy, social-climbing family into a life of poverty and homelessness in order to teach them humility[[note]]though Missy was the only one who actually learned that lesson. When the Christmas angel visited Missy, she warped reality again so that way Missy would be the daughter in a different rich family while her parents and brother from the former reality have to live life again as working-class people[[/note]].
* ''Series/{{Hercules|TheLegendaryJourneys}}'' and ''Series/{{Xena|WarriorPrincess}}'' did this rather frequently, with the latter being by far the worse offender. This tendency would eventually be lampshaded later in the latter series.
* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' is a sci-fi drama, but has a tendency to shift to different genres depending on who is being focused on. It can be a political drama when following Nathan Petrelli (in season one and late season three), it can be a high school/college drama when it follows Claire, or a cop show when following Matt.
** Volume 2 featured a JidaiGeki PeriodPiece following [[TimeMaster Hiro's]] trip to ancient Japan, and the TieInNovel ''Literature/SavingCharlie'' is a RomanceNovel.
* ''Series/{{House}}'', which is actually a medical drama, has an arc in which Dr. House hires a private investigator to spy on Wilson. Instant detective drama!
** Two seasons before that, it also [[CourtroomEpisode dipped into courtroom drama for part of an episode]] for the conclusion of the story arc featuring Detective Michael Tritter.
** And then the two-hour Season Six opener was a psychology/rehab drama.
** The Season Six episode "Lockdown" was a character-driven mystery drama.
** Ever since the [[spoiler: mass-firing/departure]] of House's fellows at the end of season 3, the show has done a fairly consistent job of mixing in genre-bender episodes that break with the standard format it had established. Since the end of season 5, in particular, this has become more and more common. These writers really know what they are doing in terms of keeping the show fresh.
** Thirteen's life outside the hospital is a crime drama replete with drugs and sex.
** A season 7 episode has some fun with this, throwing in multiple [[DreamSequence dream sequences]] in which the hospital is overrun by zombies.
* ''Series/TheITCrowd'' is normally a WorkCom set in a StandardOfficeSetting, but the beginning of "Men Without Women" takes place in an ArabianNightsDays type fantasy setting. Douglas journeys through the desert in search of a wizard living in a tent, to whom he pays 20 gold pieces for a love potion. The rest of the episode takes place back at the office.
* ''Series/{{JAG}}'':
** The first few acts of "Sightings" play more like an episode of ''Series/TheXFiles''.
** The episode "Each of Us Angels" is about an old man telling stories about his experience on a hospital ship during the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII storming of Iwo Jima]].
* The episode of ''Series/{{Jericho}}'' that dealt with [[spoiler:April's death]] played out as a medical drama.
* The ''Series/KnotsLanding'' Season Three episode "The Three Sisters" was a {{Paranormal Episode}} in which the women of Seaview Circle visit a supposedly haunted house.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'': Lost's use of flashbacks and [[spoiler:flashforwards]] allows it to dabble in other genres frequently. Examples include:
** Jacks' episodes are mostly medical dramas.
** Ana Lucia's flashbacks become a cop/crime drama.
** Kate's flashbacks feature a fugitive drama.
** Nikki and Paulo became a one-time relationship comedy. Or rather, tragicomedy.
** Ben and Sayid had a ''Film/JamesBond''/''Franchise/DieHard'' episode.
** Sayid had flashbacks about his time as a torturer in the Iraqi army and his later attempts to lead a normal life after the war.
** Another Sayid flashback had him infiltrate a terrorist group that was planning a bombing in Australia.
** Desmond's episodes had him involved in a MentalTimeTravel back when other characters would dismiss the thought of that nonsense outright.
** And some consider the Sun/Jin flashbacks to be a full-fledged SoapOpera.
** The flash-sideways frequently switch genre. Flash-sideways Locke appears to be in some sort of dramedy about coping with his disability, Ben's are a drama set in a high school (yes, a ''canon'' HighSchoolAU), Sawyer and Miles are in a buddy cop movie...
* In the third-season finale of ''Series/ModernFamily'', Cam and Mitchell are trying to adopt a newborn baby from his Latina mother, and suddenly find themselves embroiled in a {{Telenovela}} plot.
* ''Series/MurdochMysteries'' does this quite a bit. Any episode featuring Terrence Meyers is SpyFiction (if he and Murdoch are working together) or a ConspiracyThriller (if they're not). "Mild Mild West" is a {{Western}}. "Friday the 13th 1901" is a SlasherMovie. "Kung Fu Crabtree" is {{Wuxia}}. And all set in turn of the century Toronto.
* After 14 seasons of busting Myths and getting a series finale, The Science Channel suddenly announces that it is rebooting the ''Series/{{MythBusters}}'' franchise, with the next season being swapped to ''Reality TV'' (albeit only for one season).
* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': The series typically consisted of quite dark to very dark dramas but it did produce three comedy episodes, the first two being black comedies: "The Revelations of 'Becka Paulson", "What Will the Neighbors Think?" and "Down to Earth".
* "The Rescue Mission", a mid-season episode of ''Series/PowerRangersLostGalaxy'', features Terra Venture answering a distress signal left by an alien spaceship - as a result, there are no Zords, ''[[Franchise/SuperSentai Sentai]]'' footage or regular villains, and most of the fight scenes are unmorphed.
* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'':
** For one episode, "[[Recap/ThePrisonerE14LivingInHarmony Living in Harmony]]", the series' plot is [[CowboyEpisode transplanted onto a Western setting]].
** Another, "[[Recap/ThePrisonerE15TheGirlWhoWasDeath The Girl Who Was Death]]", changed the format from a serious espionage drama with sci-fi overtones to a parody of other spy dramas including ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'' and Film/JamesBond.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'', a medical dramedy about a young doctor who is constantly daydreaming, is naturally prone to bouts of MoodWhiplash and surreal, though usually hilarious sequences. (For example: medical serials are not normally known for having [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn4g5eR5AY0 lightsaber battles]] in the lobby, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA8w8Tlyz7k love trains]] in the hallways, or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yl9ZZsUX00s epic kung-fu fights]] in the parking lot.) However, two especially unusual episodes transform the episode format into a musical ("My Musical") and a bedtime story ("My Princess") respectively.
* As far as the individual episode plots, ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' is almost GenreRoulette, except that it still manages to stay sci-fi most of the time.
* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'' Season 5 Episode 19 "Vegas". An AlternateUniverse version of Shepard is a Las Vegas cop chasing a serial killer who is actually a Wraith. The first act looks and feels like an episode of CSI, right down to the zooms in to extreme close-ups of the evidence he is describing.
* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Vic Fontaine himself is a walking Out-of-Genre Experience. Introduced in the second-to-last season, Vic was an intelligent, self-aware hologram who played lounge music in a 1960's Vegas club holosuite program, and not in the "TakeOurWordForIt" way, oh no. More like in the "actually plays entire songs in the middle of an episode" kind of way. When he wasn't busy crooning to his fellow ''[=DS9=]'' regulars (and the audience at home), he was helping them find love by setting up relationships, including one ([[spoiler:Odo and Kira]]) that [[ForWantOfANail possibly saved the entire Alpha quadrant]]. One entire episode was committed to saving poor Vic in something that would fit right in with a 60's gangster movie; holodeck\suite episodes were nothing new to ''Star Trek'' by this point, but this is one of the few where there is no outside-the-box trick and everything happens irrespective of the fact that it's a simulation.
** The series also branched out into CourtroomDrama in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E18RulesOfEngagement Rules of Engagement]]", SubStory in "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS04E07StarshipDown Starship Down]]" (intended to be ''Film/DasBoot'' RecycledInSpace) and even [[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E04TakeMeOutToTheHolosuite a very literal]] BaseballEpisode [[BreatherEpisode in the middle of the Dominion War arc.]]
** ''Franchise/StarTrek'' in general is quite happy to take a break from philosophy discussions with aliens and delve into medical dramas, courtroom dramas, or murder mysteries depending on what crew-member is getting the most focus.
** ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' is generally a DarkerAndEdgier show compared to the earlier ones, but one scene in the episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS3E09TerraFirmaPartOne Terra Firma, Part 1]]" suddenly features a guy named Carl just appearing on a deserted planet with tomorrow's newspaper and a door that seemingly leads nowhere. His behavior and powers are heavily reminiscent of the Q, and he fancies himself a PungeonMaster, making the whole thing feel like a throwback to TOS or the sillier episodes of ''The Next Generation''. [[spoiler: This turns out [[{{Foreshadowing}} to be deliberate]], as [[Recap/StarTrekDiscoveryS3E10TerraFirmaPartTwo the next episode]] reveals that he's the Guardian of Forever.]]
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' is a WalkTheEarth Horror Fantasy show that likes to play GenreRoulette with various action and horror sub-genres but they love to do out-of genre episodes:
** "The Benders" and "Family Remains" are shocking because [[spoiler: it's revealed that there's nothing supernatural going on and the enemy is evil humans.]].
** "Ghostfacers" is a parody of RealityTelevision and FoundFootage horror, from the POV of minor characters who had been a thorn in the heroes side.
** "Monster Movie" is shot in black and white and has the heroes face off against classic movie monsters [[spoiler: that turn out to be a shape-shifter.]]
** "Changing Channels" shifts genres throughout the entire episode, from cheesy sitcom, to medical drama to cop procedural.
** "Frontierland" is a western/parody of westerns.
** [[Recap/SupernaturalS13E16ScoobyNatural "ScoobyNatural"]] is a crossover with Franchise/ScoobyDoo/cartoon episode.
* The flashbacks in ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'' episode "The last voyage of the Jimmy Carter" look more like scenes from a DarkerAndEdgier version of ''Series/SeaQuestDSV''.
* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'', a show in which aliens and the supernatural are commonplace, has the episode "[[{{Recap/TorchwoodS1E6Countrycide}} Countrycide]]". The main characters are just as surprised as the audience, as both [[spoiler:believed aliens were involved somehow until the last act of the episode, in which the killers turn out to be nothing more than humans. Cannibals, [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters but humans nonetheless]].]]
* ''Series/TwoPintsOfLagerAndAPacketOfCrisps'' does this with its Halloween special "When Janet Killed Johnny". Usually Halloween episodes from sitcoms balance scares with laughs. Not so here. For one thing, it transitions the series from video to film and the make-up and gore effects are ''far'' from cheesy. The lighting and the music are incredibly eerie and for some reason even the fact that they kept the laugh track for the episode makes everything scarier. The plot has the gang break back into the pub after it's closed down in order to drink up the remaining stock of brew, activating an ancient curse that whoever enters the property without permission will be killed by the thing they love most...and boy, are they ever, in increasingly sickening ways. The end of the episode shows it to be a dream - or is it!?
* ''Series/TheWestWing'' is normally a very grounded political drama dwelling on the ethics and contradictions of the highest office in UsefulNotes/TheUnitedStates. Conspiracy theories are laughed at and the supernatural is entirely absent. Except that one episode where the President of the United States was trying to decide how to handle [[ScandalGate a health scandal]] that called his fitness for office into question along with his integrity in hiding it. He makes up his mind after talking to the ghost of his [[SpiritAdvisor recently dead personal secretary]].
[[/folder]]

** Also while most of the show is a colorful, goofy, fantastical action series, during the [[BreakingTheFellowship Straw Hat Separation Arc]] [[AdventurerArcheologist Robin]] ends up on a gloomy, grey ocean spanning bridge where cruel guards abuse the slaves who are building the bridge. The scenes are cold, grey, humorless and brutal.

** Also while most of the show is a colorful, goofy, fantastical action series, during the [[BreakingTheFellowship Straw Hat Separation Arc]] [[AdventureArcheologist Robin]] ends up on a gloomy, grey ocean spanning bridge where cruel guards abuse the slaves who are building the bridge. The scenes are cold, grey, humorless and brutal.

* ''WebVideo/GirlfriendReviews'': The duo is know for their comedic and meme-filled approach to game reviews, focusing on making fun of games and their experience playing them. Their video "Understanding ''VideoGame/TheLastofUsPartII''", is a thoughtful video essay that, while having a little comedy, is an overall serious video in which Shelby analyzes the game's controversial plot points and structure rather than their experience with the game, which they felt was necessary due to the massive controversies and discourse happening around the game. They would later make their usual review of the game.

*** "{{ScoobyNatural}}" is a crossover with Franchise/ScoobyDoo/cartoon episode.

%%* Similarly, ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' has the episodes "The Benders", "Family Remains", "Ghostfacers" and "Monster Movie". Season 5's "Changing Channels" shifts genres throughout the entire episode. They had a CowboyEpisode, too.