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Mood Whiplash/Live-Action TV: Difference between revisions
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* The Pilot episode of [[Lost]] has a good example of this trope. About mid-way through the two-hour series opener, the Losties get the radio from their plane working and hear a transmission in French. After a couple seconds of them cheering that the French are coming to rescue them, Shanon translates the transmission which says in part: "I'm alone, all alone the others are dead." The Mood Whiplash makes a creepy moment far more terrifying than it already would be, and this moment basically sets the tone for the entire series.
** Possibly the most chilling moment in this show's history: in the season one finale, they're on the raft, they fire the flare--and suddenly there's a light! There's a boat! There's triumph music! They're saved! And then: {{spoiler|"Only the thing is, we're gonna have to take the boy." HOLY CRAP.}}
** On a similar note, the ''soundtrack'' for this show. A prime example is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Hre5fkdq-0 "Life & Death"]: the first three minutes are a [[Tear Jerker|tearjerking]] meditation on well, [[Exactly What It Says
* ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' and ''[[The X-Files]]'' both tended to have [[Breather Episode|goofy/stupid episodes]] in the middle of serious, depressing [[Arc|arcs]].
* ''[[Supernatural]]'' had goofy, self-referential episodes right in the middle of incredibly dark and bleak [[Arc|arcs]]. Season Two and Three are the guiltiest of this.
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'''iHawk (Groucho Marx voice):''' "Dis isn't a war, it's a moider!" }}
* [[Joss Whedon]] does this All. The. Time:
** ''[[
*** The "He is psychotic!" scene in the pilot is particularly epic.
*** It's even got an example of a character getting the brunt of the whiplash. River is dancing, actually ''happy'' for once, while the others [[Soundtrack Dissonance|are having a wild west shootout]], unbeknownst to her. Then Shepherd Book is wounded, and both the audience and River have the same reaction.
** On ''[[
*** The start of the Fred/Illyria episode also qualifies. It starts off on a light note - Wesley and Fred are [[Official Couple|together]], while Angel and Spike are arguing over [[Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny|whether cavemen or astronauts would win in a fight]]. Then Fred starts coughing up blood...
*** After the [[Darker and Edgier]] second season plot arc of "Darla and Angel", the creative team indulged in a whimsical 3-part season ender, set in a fairytale kingdom, to deliberately offset the grimness of preceding episodes.
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*** Episode 2.11, ''Getting Closer'': Topher and Bennett's {{spoiler|[[First Kiss|kiss scene]]}}, which leaves them both giddily happy; it manages to be both Crowning Moments of [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Heartwarming]] and [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Funny]] alike. Topher steps out for a minute and Claire walks in to have a conversation with Bennett that does nothing to lessen the charming atmosphere. {{spoiler|Then Topher comes back and Claire immediately pulls out a gun and blasts Bennett's brains all over him.}}
* ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'' has a lot of this. The season 1 finale in particular goes from farcical to heartwarming to OH SHIT in the space of about fifteen minutes.
* The last 10 minutes of the Season 1 finale of ''[[Queer
* In a bizarre case where it's used for comedic effect, (and I may be wrong about the exact show, but I think I'm right) the old UK sketch show ''Not the Nine O'Clock News'' where two politicians are in a shouting match until one of them drops dead on the stage, resulting in a line to the effect of: "How can you believe these lies! This man... * URK* ...will be sadly missed, and our condolences to his family."
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' embraces this trope wholeheartedly whenever it would cause the Doctor the most angst. See "Journey's End", which has triumph, reunion and celebration followed by {{spoiler|the Doctor being forced to ''[[Mind Rape]] one of his companions'' to prevent her from dying and being all alone again as a result}}. The whiplash actually occurs in mid-scene, as {{spoiler|Donna is babbling her newfound Time Lord knowledge in a rapidfire manner and just generally being hilarious as the Doctor starts to look sadder and sadder, and then, in mid babble, Donna starts to repeat the same word over and over in a stuck-record fashion and you start to realize that something is very very ''not right.''}}
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** "A Good Man Goes to War", the mid-series finale, ends with (among other things) everyone finally learning just who River is. Cut to a card telling us the Doctor will return in Autumn with "[[Refuge in Audacity|LET'S KILL HITLER]]."
** In "The God Complex" not only do the viewers experience it at every turn but so do the characters when they are possessed.
* ''[[
* ''Tonight, on a very special episode of ''[[Popular]]'', Harrison must resolve his mixed feelings about his mother when his friends discover that she's gay...''
** ''...and Mary Cherry chains Gwyneth Paltrow's personal shopper to a pipe in the school boiler room.''
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* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' - "Sometimes a Great Notion": after discovering {{spoiler|that Earth is a radioactive wasteland}} Duala cheerfully reconciles with her estranged husband {{spoiler|then puts a bullet in her brain.}}
** Thanks to the ensuing commercial break, the mood whiplashes again so suddenly [[Crosses the Line Twice|you half expect your spine to break from it]]. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zcum6lPrRo The commercial itself starts at 1:58]
* ''[[
** A specific example of a beautifully-executed mid-sentence [[Mood Whiplash]] in this episode comes when Captain Darling, {{spoiler|about to go "over the top" to his likely death,}} is listing all the things he'd hoped to do when the war ended. "Go back to work at Pratt and Sons" gets an audience laugh, as does "Keeep wicket for the Croyden gentlemen", but these are followed by a brief pause and a wistful "Marry Doris". A character who'd been portrayed as just a petty comic foil to Blackadder up to that point suddenly gets humanised.
{{quote| '''Darling:''' Made a note in my diary on the way here. Simply says..."bugger".}}
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{{quote| '''Malachai:''' You don't understand...<br />
'''O'Neill:''' I lost '''my son!''' }}
* The end of the ''[[
* ''[[
** Likewise with Dr K. At first she just seems a little strange and kinda funny, being protective about the ranger tech and even wearing bunny slippers in one episode. Though all urges to laugh at her behaviour suddenly go away when you think of her back story...
* On ''[[Deep Space 9]]'', "The Magnificent Ferengi" bounced back and forth between ridiculous and awesome repeatedly. Especially evident in the end, when Quark's team has just beaten the remaining Jem'hadar in a shoot-out and captured their Vorta leader, the triumphant mood is suddenly turned hilarious by showing the dead Vorta (reanimated with carefully-controlled electrical impulses) trying to walk into a wall, with Nog saying "I can't turn him off!"
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{{quote| '''Harry:''' (speaking to God) You remember that one guy? Of course you do, you remember everything. I tell ya, that one shook my faith to the CORE. Then you drop this brand new life, right into my hands... But if I could just have the answers to a couple of questions, like if you've always been here than where did you come from? And does man have the capacity to rid himself of his own evil? And why IS the sky blue anyway? Well, maybe I can look that one up. But all this baby stuff... that's no accident, after all you gave us Mozart, Van Gogh, Confucius, and LARRY BIRD!" * pulls a basketball from under his robes and tosses it through a hoop nailed on the cross*}}
* ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' lives and breathes this trope... Ahem.
* ''[[
* ''[[Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]]'' had one episode where the Blue Ranger had to kill his girlfriend's little brother because he was killing women to cure his sister's fatal disease... Which she was already getting better from in the first place. The scene ends with him watching his girl cry over her brother (in a rubber monster costume) in the rain with this sad whistling song... And then you get a neck sprain from the series' usual jazzy nightclub-ish end theme.
* ''[[Band of Brothers]]'' did this with episode to episode continuity. The last two episodes go from finding a Nazi concentration camp to them going into Hitler's summer home and hilariously looting it of everything of value (up to and including the photo album of his summer vacations).
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* The BBC Adaptation of ''Cranford'' can be quite frankly emotionally exhausting to watch. Funny and witty one moment, heart-breaking the next. Then melancholy. Then heart-warming. Then...you get the picture.
* [[The ABC]] series ''[[Hungry Beast]]'' swaps between sketches and serious current affairs, so in one episode you may have [http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/asbestos-deaths-and-james-hardie an exposé on the continuing problems of asbestos in Australia] and [http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/great-pigeon-race a hilarious competition between Australian broadband and a pigeon] in the same episode.
* ''[[
* ''[[Sports Night]]'' did this too many times to list.
* ''[[News Radio]]'' tried this with the episode dedicated to Phil Hartman's death by inserting jokes to lighten the mood. It didn't work too well; the real-life tears from the cast were too overwhelming for much of the episode to be really funny.
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'''Angela''': Yeah. [Angela starts to leave]<br />
'''Brennan''': And... I got into bed with Booth last night.{{[[[Beat]] Long pause}}] Why aren't you saying anything?<br />
'''Angela''': [[Shipper
* In the final episode of season two of ''[[Robin Hood (TV series)|Robin Hood]]'' Marian was {{spoiler|brutally stabbed to death by Guy and buried miles from home}}. The first episode of season three dealt the raw and bloody emotional aftermath of this. But the ''next'' episode involves Robin laughing his head off as he hang-glides from the parapets of Nottingham Castle, and Marian was only mentioned a handful of times throughout the rest of the season.
* ''[[
* ''[[Skins]]'' did this one in series 4; sandwiched between Freddie's Episode 5 (which ends with {{spoiler|Effy slitting her wrists}}) and Effy's Episode 7 (which ends with {{spoiler|Freddie being murdered with a baseball bat by Effy's psychiatrist}}), is JJ's episode, which is an almost ''too'' saccharine love story (in which {{spoiler|JJ gets together with a colleague at the [[Sugar Bowl|confectionery wholesalers]] where he works}}). It sticks out like a sore thumb, doesn't advance most of the other arcs of the series, and is suspected by some to exist primarily because of [[Executive Meddling]].
* ''[[Babylon
* ''[[
* In the ''[[Star Trek:
* The ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode "Infinite Regress", where Seven of Nine starts manifesting the personalities of people she assimilated. So in the middle of her descent into madness we get a comedy scene where she's a Ferengi trader. And then we immediately switch to pathos as she becomes the confused mother of a Starfleet officer, who was supposed to meet him at Wolf 359 (site of the big battle in "Best of Both Worlds"). And ''then'' the [[Fridge Horror]] creeps in on a sweet early scene of her as a little girl playing with Naomi Wildman, when we're reminded that this little girl was assimilated.
** Another one involving Seven of Nine manifesting other characters was when the Doctor's program is downloaded into her nanoprobes. Initially this is played for comedy, with Jeri Ryan doing a hilarous pastiche of the Doctor's pompous mannerisms. And then it suddenly turns dark when Seven learns what's happening, and she feels ''[[Mind Rape|violated]]''.
* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' had the episode "Bad News" which pretty much played out as a standard infertility story where Marshall and Lilly go to a feritlity specialist to get test to see why they are having problems conceiving (we already know Lilly will get pregnant). The usual [[Hilarity Ensues]] with Marshal being locked in a bathroom having to get a sperm sample while his mother is talking to him through the door (unaware of what is going on). Robin has some bad first days at her new job where she becomes the new [[Butt Monkey]]. By the end everything seems to have worked out, Marshall and Lilly are perfectly healthy, Robin has managed to turn things around at work and we think that the episode title is just a spoof. Then at the very last minute {{spoiler|Marshall finds that his dad whom he was about to call with the good news, had a heart attack and died.}}. Marshall's reaction is a complete [[Tear Jerker]].
* [[Keeping Up Appearances]] has fun with this trope. Hyacinth shops for a second car; A crime thriller ensues. Hyacinth tries to help her sister fix her marriage; An epic foot chase ensues. Hyacinth goads Richard into repairing some electrics and babysits dogs; The dogs run away when the church is turned into a virtual war zone and explodes.
* [[Tomica Hero Rescue Fire]] had an extreme example of this in one of the final episodes. Joukaen, an [[Axe Crazy]] fire-demon learns that humans are not the corrupt lifeform he thought them to be. Therefore he confronts his lord, Donkaen, only to learn that Donkaen turned him against the humans in the first place. So in a last effort to make up for this, he fights Donkaen and [[Redemption Equals Death|gets killed]]. One second after his death, the credits roll, with a very upbeat song as background music.
* Used to chillingly good effect in the episode ''Queen of Hearts'' in ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. King Uther initially thinks it's hilarious that Arthur has been caught making out with Guinevere in the woods ("I was young once, I know about the temptations of serving girls!") only for him to coldly banish Gwen from Camelot on pain of death once Arthur declares his love for her less than thirty seconds later.
** The episode also opens on a note of [[Mood Whiplash]] in which Guinevere's beautiful sunlit coronation is suddenly interrupted by Morgana waking up in a panic, the whole thing having been her prophetic nightmare.
** Season four premiere has Arthur, Merlin and the knights wandering in a desolate village. Tension is mounting and they don't even know what kind of monster they are looking for. Suddenly, Gwaine takes a bite from an apple, startling everyone and breaking the tension. Only for Elyan to discover dead bodies.
* [[The Doctor Oz Show]] tends to do this in episodes with serious topics. It may start off with somber conversations with women who have lost family members to cancer...and one tiny commercial break later, audience members are passing brightly colored balls representing poop through a plastic tube representing the colon, with everyone laughing and cheering at a successful "bowel movement" into a plastic bucket.
* ''[[
** In the same episode, a humorous scene in which Tyrion, Bronn, and Shae play a drinking game leads into the tragic story of {{spoiler|Tyrion's first love, and how it turned out that she was actually a prostitute his brother had hired to make a man of him, and how as punishment for marrying her, Tyrion's father made him watch as she was gang-raped by his entire garrison.}}
* [[Scream Queens]] acknowledges this very trope in its second series when John Homa is teaching the girls how to cry in scenes. One girl is told to laugh hysterically about stories she's telling at Christmas, when Homa suddenly tells her to imagine that the stories are about people who aren't alive anymore.
* Done many, many times in ''[[Frasier]]'', when a scene that is initially [[Played for Laughs]] becomes, upon further elaboration, much darker or more emotional than before. For example, Niles discovers that his wife Maris is cheating on him with his marriage counselor through a hilarious scene of [[Missed Him
** Oh God, Daphne when Niles is having heart surgery. It's terrific writing and acting because the others make the jokes and act as you would expect but Daphne is sat wondering if she is going to lose Niles not that long after they have finally finally managed to get together. Almost as good is the terrific scene with Martin who is equal parts reproachful, compassionate and understanding with her when he says "It's hard as hell for all of us".
* ''[[NCIS]]'' does this in the episode "Two-Faced" (8.20). In many episodes, the final minutes after the climax are dedicated to comedy or romantic drama, and this is what it looks like when Tony and Ziva are sitting at a bar talking about their relationships (with a colleague and a liaison CIA agent respectively) when suddenly, the music changes and then... [[Eye Scream|eyeball in the icecube]]. And their expressions: ''FUCK''.
** Kate's {{spoiler|sudden death}} at the end of Season 2 too.
* [[The Six Million Dollar Man]]: Due to a decision not to air the tragic original [[The Bionic Woman]] two-parter at the end of the season (even though it was filmed as such), viewers saw Steve grieving for Jaime one week, and then his usually happy-go-lucky, womanizing self the next week.
* ''[[
* The later seasons of ''[[Boy Meets World]]'' had a lot of this because during those seasons [[Cerebus Syndrome|the show had a lot more serious plotlines]] while continuing to be a sitcom, so in the more serious episodes comedy relief scenes were injected between the serious scenes. A lot of the episode had a [[Two Lines, No Waiting]] setup where one plot was comedic and one was serious.
* ''[[West Wing]]'' Has one of these, completely unintentionally. Season 1 ends with someone opening fire on the president and crowd and as the visual fades you hear "Who's been hit? Who's been hit?" and then...there's the exceedingly peppy end credits music.
** The show often does intentional versions of this trope too. The most extreme is probably "Take This Sabbath Day," where the episode alternates between the gut-wrenching, extremely dark A-plot of Bartlet debating whether or not to commute the sentence of a man on death row scheduled to be executed by midnight, and the side-splittingly hilarious B-plot of an extremely hungover Josh experiencing [[Disaster Dominoes]] while bickering with a congressional campaign manager.
* Done deliberately as part of the format in ''[[Doc Martin]]'', every episode will contain one dark, serious and weighty storyline, and one light [[Quirky Town]] style story. They will then interleave throughout the episode, often with both story lines crossing through the same scene, and leaving the viewer pretty wrung out emotionally by the end.
* An In-Universe example from [[
{{quote| '''Spencer:''' She used to say "Winder" instead of "Window".<br />
''(Everyone laughs)''<br />
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