Voluntary Shapeshifting / Live-Action TV

• Pilgrim Boy from The Aquabats! Super Show!.
• Ashes of Love:
  • Tai Wei and his son Run Yu can both turn into dragons, while his other son Xu Feng turns into a phoenix instead.
  • Yan You can turn into a snake.
• Flabber from Beetleborgs has this as one of his powers, being that he's a magical Phasm and all (and a rather obvious Genie/Mask Captain Ersatz, with the looks of the Joker). Early on in Beetleborgs Metalix, the kids get the ability to turn into actual beetles by shouting "Bug Out!" to turn into bugs and "Bug back!" to turn back into themselves.
• The Boys (2019): Doppleganger has this power, being able to assume other forms and impersonate people perfectly by doing so.
• Buffyverse:
  • It can be argued that the Game Face presented by vampires is their real appearance (after all, they're demons!) and they "shape-shift" to appear as normal humans as necessary.
  • In an interesting twist on this trope, The First Evil implies that it doesn't merely make itself look like the person it impersonates, it actually becomes them, at least partially. (When it appears to Faith as Mayor Wilkins, it says something to the effect of "I am The First Evil, but I am also the man himself.")
  • Toru has this ability, which he stole from Dracula, along with several other abilities.
  • Some demons have the ability to transform into a human form. Even among half-demons, this ability is widespread, as shown by Doyle, Ruby, Whistler, and Mal Fraser.
  • The witch Amy can turn at will into a rat or cat in the comics.
  • The new race of vampires also has the ability to turn into animals. However, only at night, during the day they can not transform.
• Creepshow: In "Okay, I'll Bite", Elmer uses the ritual detailed on the scroll he receives to transform himself into a giant spider and exact revenge on his primary tormentor.
• Most Time Lords from Doctor Who appear able to exert some measure of control over regeneration: choosing their next form, forcing a regeneration, or refusing to regenerate (which results in death). The Doctor himself, however, seems unable to control his regenerations. Fanon has it that traumatic regenerations such as the Doctor's cannot be controlled; after all, when you've been submitted to radiation poisoning/a fall from a great height or another blunt trauma/cellular degeneration, your least worry is whether your next incarnation will have any dress sense.
• In Fringe, we have the second season's antagonists, Newton and His Shapeshifters, Cyborg soldiers from an Alternate Universe who can mimic the appearance of others (essentially switching bodies, but only after killing the subject and only with the aid of a special device).
• Game of Thrones: Faceless Men like Jaqen H'ghar can change their faces at will.
• Gotham: Jane Doe has this ability as a result of experiments performed on her by Dr. Strange. She's capable of taking any person's form simply by touching them.
• In Volume Four of Heroes, Sylar tracks down and kills a man who can change his form to look like any other human being, and thus claims the power for himself.
• Ice Fantasy: Ying Kong Shi can turn into anyone he wants to, including Lan Shang and Ka Suo. That last one causes an awful lot of trouble for the real Ka Suo.
• In From the Cold: Jenny has some kind of implants inside her body which let her "morph" into a new body, which is discovered after she's changed into an older man in the prison. However, this is a bit more realistic, as it puts an incredible strain on her internal organs, so much that she risks death through even using it and can only "copy" a body whom she's already touched. After using it she craves foods which have a lot of iron too since morphing costs this. She can only control this for so long, and it sometimes reverts on its own after a time.
• Kingdom Adventure: Dagger demonstrates the ability to change into the form of a vulture, allowing him to travel distances quickly. He's not mastered landing, though.
• Ttark from Kratts' Creatures.
• Legend of the Seeker: It turns out that both Shota and Zedd can make their bodies young again. Only Shota is vain enough to do this all the time. Zedd only does when he's bewitched by her. When her magic is taken, she's revealed to be old like him.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: One of The Dweller's magical abilities is to shapeshift in other beings. During her time in the show, she is seen turning only humanoid ones.
• In Lost, the smoke monster can take the form of several people, but they have to be dead first. He takes the place of John Locke midway through season five.
• Love and Destiny: Ling Xi can turn into a phoenix and Jiu Chen can turn into a dragon.
• Lovecraft Country: Ruby's transformations are willing after the first one, as she comes to enjoy having greater privilege in a white form. Christina has also been turning into William all this time.
• The main character in Manimal can transform into any animal, though he seems to fixate on a panther, a hawk, a snake, a dolphin, and other creatures for which the producers had sufficient stock footage. The transformations into a bull or cat are done off-screen, though. When he transforms back into his human form, he is always inexplicably fully clothed.
• Mayfair Witches: Lasher has this ability, demonstrating it to Deirdre by rapidly changing his face in succession, putting on many faces of different ages, sexes and races but also some horrific inhuman ones.
• Meego, from the short-lived TV series of the same name, possesses shape-shifting abilities, although they were only seen in the first episode. To prove to one of the main characters that he was an alien, Meego transformed from his normal, humanoid form into a bug-eyed furry monster, a sumo wrestler, then into an attractive blonde in a bathing suit before changing back to normal.
• The Messengers: This is Kao Lin's ability, and she can apparently acquire knowledge from the people she's impersonated as well (learning martial arts through doubling a man when he had attempted to rape her, for instance).
• Metal Heroes:
  • Space Sheriff Gavan's partner Mimi has shapeshifting powers through a device around her neck, but she only uses it to turn into a bird and occasionally alter her clothing.
  • Likewise, Sharivan's partner Lily is able to perfectly impersonate one of the female villains down to voice and face, though that might have been due to makeup.
• A Villain of the Week in Misfits uses this ability to get revenge on Simon by turning the Misfits against each other.
• October Faction: Alice can take on the form of people she encounters.
• Odd Squad: The aptly named Shapeshifter is a villainess who can shapeshift into anything she desires, from people to inanimate objects. While it is stated that a downside to the ability is that whatever she turns into will always remain the same weight, it's often not represented continuously, with her shapeshifting into things that are easy for agents to pick up, such as pies. The Form Changer, Shapeshifter's twin sister, also has the same ability.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "Under the Bed", the child-snatching creatures can shapeshift. One changes into a teddy bear in order to lure Andrew Rosman to his doom.
  • In "To Tell the Truth", the native population of Janus Five possess this ability.
  • In "Stranded", Tyr'Nar is a member of a species of shapeshifters.
  • In "The Gun", the alien calling himself Donald Finley seemingly belongs to a race of shapeshifters.
  • In "Revival", Luke and Serena are members of a race of shapeshifters.
  • In "A New Life", the alien merchants who deceived people into joining the religious community are shapeshifters. There are at least seven of them, all of whom assume the form of the community's leader Father.
  • In "Alien Shop", the shopkeeper belongs to a species of shapeshifters and assumes multiple forms in his dealings with Andy Pace.
  • In "Dark Child", The Greys who abducted Laura Sinclair in 1984 are shapeshifters.
• Power Rangers:
  • Primator, a Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers Monster of the Week, can become any Ranger in civilian or morphed form.
  • Body Switcher from Power Rangers in Space can not only alter his own form, but others. Little do the Rangers know that it's not the Yellow Ranger who returned with them, but the Big Bad having been disguised as her.
  • Slate from Power Rangers S.P.D. could take on the form of past monsters whose DNA patterns he'd been given by Broodwing. For the final round with him, Morgana split him into all the forms he'd taken.
  • Many monsters and major villains throughout the franchise have the ability to disguise themselves as humans (or were humans who had been altered and could take on monster forms) even if shapeshifting is not otherwise part of their arsenal. Some random shady dude turning into the Monster of the Week is a common way to introduce it.
• Raven from the kids TV game show of the same name. Guess what he transforms into?
• Red Dwarf: The Polymorph is a genetically engineered super-soldier that feeds on negative emotions by transforming into objects or people that trigger them. A tamed version called the Emohawk appears later on.
• In Shadowhunters, demons are capable of changing their appearance at will. The demon Jace, Izzy, and Alec hunt in "The Mortal Cup" changes its appearance to that of whomever it bumps into. Later, a demon impersonates a family friend of Clary's, Dot.
• Maya the Metamorph in Space: 1999.
• Star Trek:
  • The changelings, including main ensemble member Odo, from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine have a very flexible and almost undetectable transformation power. Their natural state is a viscous fluid with a density comparable to battery acid. Given how those who reside on Odo's planet of birth, though not Odo himself (Odo is noted as inferior at the art compared to those shifters, and unlike them cannot mimic faces just right), manage to actually replace "solids" and impersonate them successfully even in interactions with those who know the real person well (e.g. fooling the DS9 crew when taking Bashir's form, and Gowron when taking Martok's form), they somehow must have the very powerful ability to even access many of the memories of those whose forms they take. Odo himself manages some complex transformations later on, though — you'd think light is tougher than a face. Maybe he keeps his default appearance just because it's the one everyone's gotten used to.
  • The Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation are powerful, godlike beings who can take the form of living and non-living things. The Q played by John de Lancie normally appears as a human male, but he has taken other forms, like an Aldebaran serpent in "Hide and Q" and a Chokuzan in "Q2." Q also tells Picard that he could have appeared as a female in his past appearances in the episode "Qpid."
  • Also Allasomorphs, featured in the Next Generation episode "The Dauphin".
  • There are also the Chameloids, only really seen in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
• A few monsters from Supernatural: Shapeshifters, Leviathan, Jefferson Starships, Eve, Changelings, Sirens, Wraiths.
• Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms: Most of the characters have animal forms that they can change into at will. Bai Qian can turn into a nine-tailed fox while Ye Hua can turn into a dragon.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has the shapeshifting liquid-metal Terminator (according to All There in the Manual, a T-1001) known as Weaver, who becomes a major character in the show's second season.
• Sam Merlotte from True Blood is a shapeshifter, and others appear as the series goes on.
• The Twilight Zone (1959):
  • In "The Four of Us Are Dying", the con man Arch Hammer has the ability to alter his face so that he can imitate anyone that he chooses.
  • In "The Fugitive", Ben can change his shape into anything that he can imagine. Aside from the old man shape that he has been using since he met Jenny, he turns into a Martian, a mouse, a fly and Jenny herself. His true form is that of a handsome young man who looks completely human.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Stranger in Possum Meadows", Scout belongs to a race of shapeshifters. In his report to his home planet, he says that it was easy for him to assume a human form.
• A lot of monsters and aliens in the Ultra Series can do this, but some have this as their defining trait. Often overlaps with Evil Knockoff.
  • The original Ultraman gives us the first and most famous of these in Zarab, an alien invader who delights in sowing discord and break trusts through the impersonation of others. His favourite tactic is to transform himself into a sinister-looking duplicate of Ultraman and then go on a rampage.
  • Another famous shapeshifting alien is Babalou from Ultraman Leo, who likes to do much of the same thing as Zarab. The difference is that his disguises are 100% perfect in appearance, allowing him to even fool the Ultras.
  • One episode of Ultraman Tiga features a race of aliens called the Menjura who kidnap various members of GUTS and impersonate them to cause havoc around their base. However, instead of transforming into lookalikes of Tiga to fight him, they perform a Fusion Dance.
  • The alien brawler Gregorl-Man from Ultraman Dyna takes the form of an evil-looking version of Ultraman Dyna, but rather than using it to make it seem as if the Ultra has turned his back of humanity, it is solely to fight him on an equal footing.
  • Ultraman Gaia features organisms made of liquid metal that take on humanoid forms to battle the Ultra heroes. Apatee is the first of these, taking on the form of a knight-like being to battle Gaia. Its successors Algyuros and Meemos are far more advanced, impersonating Ultraman Agul and Gaia, respectively, and only taking on other forms once the disguises stop working.
  • The Ultraman Cosmos monster Gelworm is a tiny insect-like creature that can absorb the DNA of any lifeform in order to take their shape and size, meaning that it can turn into a human or even Ultraman Cosmos. The good news is that it's a completely harmless creature, only using its abilities to get around, as well as fight Cosmos when provoked.
  • In Ultraman Mebius, Yapool uses a smoke-like Choju named Gadiba that assimilates other creatures and their DNA in order to take on their forms, as it does to Gomora and Red King to battle Mebius.
• Willow: The Crone is ghastly, looking like a walking corpse, but can make herself look like a young, beautiful woman. In the Season 1 finale, a being who's possible the Wyrm also takes on Elora's appearance as well.
• The X-Files:
  • Shapeshifting aliens are a recurring menace, though they don't need to kill someone to take their shape, they often do to avoid complications. The alien bounty hunter is probably the most notable example.
  • "Small Potatoes" features a man who can shapeshift and uses the ability to sleep with women while disguised as their husbands. His natural form is ugly and comes complete with tail, and his children retain these traits, much to the horror of the women who have essentially been unknowingly raped. He then locks up Mulder and takes his form to elude capture, and then, understandably, tries to get it on with Scully.

---