Out-of-Genre Experience: Difference between revisions

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Lost]]'' is (at least in the beginning) about people stranded on an island. Jack is a doctor. We expect Jack to tend to people on the island. What we don't expect is Jack's flashbacks to become a full-blown medical drama. Never once has ''Lost'' been described as a "medical drama".

* In the ''[[JAG]]'' episode ''Each of Us Angels'' is about an old man telling stories about his experience on a hospital ship during the [[World War II|storming of Iwo Jima]].

* [[Chuck]]'s sister and brother in law are both doctors, but it dips into "Medical Drama" (or medical ''comedy'', given that this is Chuck) less often then you would think (it still happens from time to time, though).

* The ''[[Firefly]]'' episode "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 resident doctor on board Serenity and once one of the best trauma surgeons in the Core before the events which led to him and River becoming wanted fugitives, poses as a doctor and gets some awesome moments, including one where he risks blowing his cover to save a patient's life, and then ''thoroughly'' chews out the guy who was treating him.

* The episode of ''[[Jericho]]'' that dealt with {{spoiler|April's death}}.

 

 

 

== Anime & Manga ==

* The [[Slice of Life]] alternate reality scene in episode 26 of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''.

* ''[[Berserk]]'', for one arc, becomes a grim and gritty medieval story devoid of any demons, aside from the Zodd fight. After the arc, shit starts hitting the fan and we return to the [[Crapsack World]] that is the world of Berserk.

* In ''[[Hajime no Ippo]]'', a ([[Long Runner|long]]) series about the harsh world of boxing, the main characters take part in an light-hearted baseball match for a few chapters. [[Mood Whiplash|Just after the bloodiest, dirtiest and least funny fight of the series]].

* Given what it's [[Bound and Gagged|normally]] [[Ecchi|like]], seeing ''[[Nana to Kaoru]]'' briefly turn into a high school sports manga is unexpected. The heroine and her rival ''are'' on their separate school's track teams, though.

 

* ''[[Forrest Gump]]'': Mostly a general drama, but part of the plot is a war story.

* In ''[[Master and Commander]]'', the crew rests for a few days on the Galapagos Islands. Dr Maturin explores the island with the help of an eager midshipman and the film turns into a nature documentary for a little while.

* While all the [[Resident Evil]] films were arguably a [[Genre Roulette]], the third one was entirely different from the other 3. It was less a zombie movie and more a [[Desert Punk]] film with zombies occasionally appearing.

* ''[[Moby Dick]]'' includes chapters devoted to explaining various aspects of whaling life, as well as a cetology (study of whales) lesson that could fit into a biology textbook or encyclopedia. [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment|There's also a chapter about chowder.]]

* Similarly, ''[[Les Misérables]]'' has extensive sections detailing the Paris sewers, the Battle of Waterloo, thieves' argot, cloistered orders of nuns...

** Similarly, ''[[Chamber of Secrets]]'' is kind of a horror story and ''[[Order of the Phoenix]]'' is kind of a political drama/satire. Also, anything with [[Hilariously Abusive Childhood|the Dursleys]] leans on something of a [[Stepford Suburbia]] [[Black Comedy]].

* The ''[[Thursday Next]]'' books are... [[Genre Busting|sort of]] an urban fantasy mystery series about literature and the [[Meta Fiction]] thereof. Once per book, there's a chapter wherein Thursday teams up with Spike [[Meaningful Name|Stoker]] to fight vampires, ghosts, demons or what have you, usually just so she can pay the rent. The narration shifts to a style that would not be out of place in ''[[Dracula]]'' or the more serious modern horror novel. And then things are back to normal next chapter.

** There's also a scene where Thursday has to cross the void between two books in the Bookworld, and the book depicts the wordless void by briefly turning into a comic.

 

 

** Kate's flashbacks feature a fugitive drama.

** Nikki and Paulo became a one-time relationship comedy. Or rather, tragicomedy.

** 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

** And some consider the Sun/Jin flashbacks to be a full-fledged [[Soap Opera]].

** 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'' [[High School AU]]), Sawyer and Miles are in a buddy cop movie...

** Two seasons before that, it also 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? Either way, definite genre change.

** 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.

* Similarly, ''[[Supernatural]]'' has the episodes "The Benders" and "Family Remains".

** And "Ghostfacers" and "Monster Movie"

* ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys|Hercules]]'' and ''[[Xena]]'' did this rather frequently, with the latter being by far the worse offender. This tendency would eventually be lampshaded later in the latter series.

* "The Rescue Mission", a mid-season episode of ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy]]'', features Terra Venture answering a distress signal left by an alien spaceship - as a result, there are no Zords, [[Super Sentai|Sentai]] footage or regular villains, and most of the fight scenes are unmorphed.

 

 

== Music ==

{{quote| Y'all act like I'm sayin' <br />

[[Metal Scream|I LOVE]] [[Satan|LUCIFER]] [[Metal Scream|I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU]] }}

* 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 [[Genre Shift]], but they returned to form for their final album, ''Laserdance Strikes Back''.

* Anoraak normally does minimalistic synthpop, but "Long Distance Hearts" has a more trancy sound.

 

 

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 3'' has an interesting experience with this trope. {{spoiler|While in prison, Naked Snake can fall asleep [[No Fourth Wall|if you save and quit]]. When you load it back, a hack-and-slash minigame starts. After a few minutes of slicing up [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|giant mutant prison guard monsters]], Snake wakes up from his nightmare, evoking a hilarious radio conversation from Para-Medic when called.}}

* ''[[Jagged Alliance]] 2'' is a squad-based strategy/RPG, set in a [[Banana Republic]], where you assist an uprising against an evil queen and... WHERE THE HELL DID THE HUGE MAN-EATING BUGS COME FROM!?

* A DLC pack for [[Red Dead Redemption]], "Undead Nightmare" turns the game into a [[Zombie Apocalypse]] story in a new campaign mode. Oh, and it add mythical creatures, too.

* ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'' is pretty much a straight Bioware RPG [[Space Opera]]. Commander Shepard wanders around the galaxy performing quests and beating up bad guys. Then there are two quests worth of downloadable content which turn the game temporarily into a heist movie and a detective movie respectively, with the appropriate mood, camera work and tropes.

* In ''[[Fable|Fable III]]'', once the King/Queen first sets foot on the streets of Aurora, there is a rather abrupt (and effective) switch from dark humor/fantasy to full-blown horror and it just gets [[It Got Worse|worse from there.]]

* In the NES ice hockey game ''Blades of Steel'', the first intermission entertainment is a short, simplified game of the space-shooter ''[[Gradius]]'' on the arena scoreboard. Then the puck drops for the second period.

 

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' has a couple of episodes like this. "Zuko Alone" is a random Western, complete with a [[Showdown At High Noon]]. "The Beach" is a random [[Teen Drama]], complete with [[Fan Service]] and a [[Wild Teen Party]]. "The Puppetmaster" is a horror, conveniently aired near Halloween.

** They even lampshaded their pre-finale summation episode; when the Gaang takes a break from training to go see a play based on their previous adventures, Sokka comments that this exactly the kind of random time-wasting activity he misses since the show shifted to more serious and plot-driven/driving episodes.

* The ''[[Recess]]'' episode "Schoolworld" adds Sci-fi to the comedy-drama.

 

{{reflist}}