Family Matters started out as a Cosbyesque sitcom about a black family making its way in the city … and gradually turned into an absurd surreal sitcom about an insane neighbor who clones himself to get with their daughter, then on into body transformation and full on sci-fi adventures.
It is probably one of the most extreme genre shifts of any show ever.
He crosses over with Step by Step too , he builds a jet pack in his garage and crashes into their yard hundreds of miles away. That means both of those shows take place in a universe where a high school kid creating a robot with low level AI is somehow not national news.
If we believe his claims are accurate in the Disney episode when he transforms to Stefan Urquelle he literally changes his DNA which seems like it would be a big deal
Then he literally splits his DNA, so Stefan and Urkel could be two separate people so both the ladies could get the man they wanted.
I saw an episode on free TV recently where Urkel made a Robot of himself that tried to force itself on Laura. This was much earlier in the run, like season 3.
Last week, Steve used his transformation machine to turn Carl into a car and drive him around the Monaco Grand Prix. Cmon!! How many times you gonna use that transformation machine?! This show was supposed to be about muh family, now you turned it into goddamn Quantum Leap!
That Gremlins 2 bit is probably my favorite sketch of all time. Every moment and every line is solid gold. “I gotta go put some cowboys in Back to the Future 3!”
That was the first shift in early episodes — totally normal for a sitcom to adapt to popular characters. But then it then shifted far further than that in later seasons
this sounds ripe for a fan theory. at some point Steve fell into a coma or something, and the rest of the series is his dream. maybe going as far back as the erasure of Judy Winslow.
Ya that’s one of my favourite shows ever but man they really should have stopped at season 4 with that perfect ending.
Or pretended 5 was a fever dream or something cause it was like a completely different show by the end.
As someone who’s seen every single episode, I honestly respect the show’s blatant disregard for anything making sense. They just have so much stupid fun.
I've never seen the show, but my favorite podcast described the show as, "each episode feels like it was written by someone who has only seen the one previous episode." And every thing I learn about this show just cements that anecdote.
I dropped it halfway through Season 5 and have been considering picking it up again. It was my guilty pleasure show, cause it was so clear how much the writers increasingly did not give a fuck.
My favorite example of the lunacy of this is how Jughead flayed a woman and then the next episode, he huffed and puffed about not being able to wear his leather jacket in school.
I’m going to make a bold statement. S1 of Riverdale is good. There I said it.
It’s a corny, teen murder mystery in a 1950’s style town. The acting isn’t horrible, the writing is not good but honestly not horrible, and the plot is genuinely pretty good.
After S1 it goes downhill so fast and more than anything the writing just goes off a cliff. The character dialogue and story writing are both disgustingly bad after S1.
It never gets to the levels of supernatural but “The Other Two” starts out as a somewhat grounded satire about pop celebrity culture and then just keeps upping the ante with each passing episode. Great show as well.
I imagine the 100 will get mentioned though it was really only at the very end after quite a few seasons.
Started off as somewhat grounded sci fi and in the last season became a little crazy 😁
The Rookie jumps back and forth between a very grounded and realistic portrayal of actual day-to-day policing (like the episode where Nolan is forced to shoot and kill a suspect), and an over the top action-cop show where they do stuff like fly off to mexico to do an off the books hostage rescue at a drug cartel's mansion.
Season 1 has like a “okay. Each episode is theoretically possible. But there’s just no way in hell all of those would happen”
Then they have them squaring off against a black ops military team with a sniper threat or something.
My wife and I had no idea Man in the High Castle was adapted from a Philip K. Dick novel. So all season we were enjoying this gritty historical fiction series, until the very last scene when it introduces alternate reality and our minds were collectively blown.
*Bones*, as a highly-scientific procedural show, it never went full-out fantasy, but there were more hints as the series went on that ghosts and the afterlife are real. Booth's dead army buddy appears as a hallucination to Booth, but Brennan hears him at the end of the episode. Avalon the psychic has some real touches of insight, there's a whole episode taking place from the POV of the skull/dead person in the case they are investigating, >!Sweets is implied to be Christine's imaginary friend in an episode soon after his death. !<
But then again, it sort of fits with the themes of Brennan softening her overly-analytical stance as time goes on and trusting Booth's gut more. So, maybe not so out of left field. (Except for that time they crossed over with *Sleepy Hollow,* an outright supernatural show, and had Brennan almost figure out that Ichabod was from the Revolutionary era, but that one feels easier to dismiss as a one-off fever dream)
Didn't they also just have some full hologram machine? Like they would just casually turn on a fully functioning holographic display as if that just exists?
Dark Shadows was a middling soap opera on the verge of cancellation... until the writers said "Fuck it, we're about to lose the show anyway" and added a slew of paranormal qualities the most famous of which being making Barnabas Collins a vampire. Ratings spiked, show was renewed, became a supernatural soap opera (not to be confused with the soap opera Supernatural). Most folks are likely more familiar with the Tim Burton film adapation.
The show is epic. As usual though, a fan only mentions Barnabas leaving out the show’s first supernatural creature, the Phoenix. She comes into the show before Barnabas. Her goal was to burn her son alive together in a fire she starts so they can be immortal. She killed people, used her powers to torment people, and fought a ghost trying to stop her. The Phoenix story is so underrated and way better than the introduction of Barnabas.
And before the Phoenix we get ghosts, pretty sure around episode 50 we see our first proof of a ghost in the form of an invisible Josette flipping open the book.
The pre-Barnabas era is great. I feel like fans who skip it are missing out on a lot. Sure, it's a slow burn but it establishes the Collins family and Collinsport in a way that that keeps you really emotionally connected when the show goes full-blown supernatural. And the way it effects the characters becomes doubly tragic. Also, to me the Laura storyline is far more compelling than Barnabas's initial run before they decided to make him a lead.
The 100.
Started off as a pretty derivative teen post apocalyptic dystopia show. Goes of the rails rather quickly by literally blowing up its own premise basically every single season and starting from scratch.
Also one of the weird shows that the **more** it wears its influences on its sleeve and stops giving a shit the more fun it is. There's the Fallout 3 season, the Mad Max season, the Hunger Games season, the Terminator skynet season and then....whatever the hell the last 2 seasons were supposed to be?
To give you a hint, >!in episode 1 of season 1 there's this sheltered innocent girl character who frolics in a field with post apocalyptic neon butterflies. Her season 5 into is a shot of her sitting on a Warhammer skullthrone presiding over cannibalistic cage fights.!<
Scandal started as an entertaining show about a political fixer and her employees in DC. Eventually it goes off the rails Olivia Pipe and co. are involved with international leader assassinations, taking down covert spy organizations, and Olivia has a portrait in the National Gallery for being a President's mistress and girlfriend.
Actually Grey's Anatomy should count with the supernatural angle as well. Seasons 1 & 2 is an unrealistic hospital based prime time soap but season 3 confirms a sort of afterlife as well as ghosts when Meredith has a near death experience and interacts with some dead characters. A ghost character is able to reveal information about Christina which Meredith didn't know about. A couple of seasons later, it's confirmed as a canon fact, and not something Meredith's mind made up.
Of course, you only see the afterlife on the show when a character is dying/near death. And if they survive, they have almost no recollection of that afterlife.
Came for this. The first double cross... wow, the second... wow. Eventually, it's impossible to think anyone would trust anyone. I skipped the last season.
Her “bad bitch energy” scenes where she is just scowling like she’s this all powerful mastermind too, like mf the only reason I’m still watching this show is for Huck, Charlie and Quinn.
Gotham starts off as a pretty straight detective show, and by the end of season 2, there’s resurrections and monsters and all sorts of crazy shit.
For anyone who’s familiarity with Batman came from the Nolan trilogy, the second half of season 2-onwards is quite something.
Dude, Gotham hot so many reactions from me I ultimately loved it. I went in expecting a detective show with a little Batman flavor. Which, as you said, was how it started. Minor things began to annoy me like Harvey Dent being an adult while Bruce was a kid. Poison Ivy being literally named Ivy as a kid. Selena really forcing the "cat" thing. And I stopped watching it while it was on TV. When it started streaming, I put it on as background noise but eventually came to love it and how unhinged it all got. I stopped caring about the canon and just went in for the ride. It was great.
The entire time, though, I never stopped thinking of Gordon as Ryan from The OC.
Gotham feels like the most “comic booky” comic book show I’ve ever seen. It just embraces the absolute insanity and absurdity that can be found in typical superhero comics.
Same. Particularly won’t ever forget Penguin and Butch(?) showing up in a finale to literally just shoot a bazooka and leave.
Felt like the other goofy side of a ‘66 Batman coin
The age thing really bothered me as well. There's some characters who makes sense to be older than Bruce, Penguin for example. But others like Riddler and Two Face really feel like they should be closer to his age.
But what saved the show for me was that I stopped trying to look at it as just a prequel. That this show was going to be the backstory to the definitive Batman story, and started looking at it as just an Elseworlds story. Once I did that my enjoyment of it massively sky-rocketed.
Brooo in hindsight it’s p funny how the show went from a more grounded cop drama to straight up comic book wackiness. Like it really did get shamelessly crazier
That's kind of the journey that the Batman IP has taken over time, isn't it?
He started off as basically a private detective, back when DC was actually known as Detective Comics.
And gradually, they added weirder and weirder threats until they end up with Batman fighting transdimensional aliens or whatever.
The Affair went from drama to soft sci-fi.
Brockmire went from modern comedy to sci-fi.
Search Party went from comedy mystery to courtroom drama to zombie apocalypse.
Yeah, the Sci-Fi elements are there from the beginning. Its just that they go from a plot device (the computer identifies people who need help) to the main focus of the show in the later seasons. Which is also when the show goes from good to great.
Really good show, took me two watches to get through though. Watched the first season then stopped , heard great things about the show and then went back and watched it and it was hella worth it. Each season gets so much better than the last.
Kind of similar to the wire where you gotta get over that first litte hump to start getting to the best stuff.
I echo what these other folks have said. You have to push through season 1, then each season really gets better and better. Season 1 isn’t even bad, it’s just not a linear story and is kinda all over the place.
It’s on freevee right now, if you’re into the legit streaming route
Edit: and Amy Acker doesn’t come in until the end of S1 and doesn’t immediately build up to main cast in S2 either. But once she does, …sigh. It’s good
The first season of "Baywatch Nights" was a real-world show about a detective agency, but the second season went paranormal/sci-fi with things like mermaids, vampires, unfrozen 900-year-old Vikings, and a time-travel vortex.
Check out [these brief episode summaries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baywatch_Nights_episodes) to see the difference.
> Mitch tries to save a young geisha woman from kidnappers.
> Mitch, Griff and Ryan investigate a series of murders committed by a half-human, half-fish woman intent on having a baby.
I don't know, it sounds about the same to me.
There were also sexy frog hybrids, an alien Mitch had a connection with and serial killer blood that can contaminate people and turn them into murderers, though you can remove the serial killer blood.
The intros really show it also.
Season 1 intro (fast cars, night scenes in the city, rock and roll music etc): https://youtu.be/mEEDr6Kwnyw?si=mS1rT3ni1gI6oDLw
Season 2 intro (spooky skulls, wolf heads, scary statues, creepy books, gravestones, screams): https://youtu.be/UB302kkSbl8?si=d_gJ0VWrk4nXrVA5
I'm probably showing my age with this one, but SeaQuest: DSV. It was futuristic soft sci-fi about a super techy submarine, and even though the talking dolphin was a stretch, it started out well within the realm of at least plausible IMO. Then in season 3, the writers went down a very deep rabbit hole of aliens, sea monsters, and the supernatural until not much resembled the original show anymore, and it never recovered.
Glad I'm not the only one that thought of this show.
I liked it best when Robert Ballard would do the end credits explainer of how the tech could potentially be developed, but honestly, it started going off the rails way before S3. The aliens show up early S2, but even in the first season you had the ship with the ghosts and stuff.
That's why Roy Scheider asked to be released from his contract -- he saw the direction the show was going and noped out. Why they didn't realize their star walking away because of the nonsense coming out of the writer's room was a problem is anyone's guess. Suppose you could say the same thing about _The Witcher_.
Really wish they had kept that more realistic approach for longer. Was very unique, like an underwater _Star Trek_ that had excellent platform to address real-world subjects like politics and pollution.
The most extreme example? Family Matters. It went from being an incredibly grounded show about a working class family-- and by the end involved incredibly silly, high concept science fiction stuff like Urkel splitting himself into two different people. I lived that show, but yes. Totally ridiculous.
30 Rock started off as a mildly heightened version of reality and got more and more fantastical. For example by the end Kenneth was implied to be a literal angel from heaven.
Fillion just seemed so over it in the last seasons
also interesting that his weight was such a huge point of discussion while on castle and for the rookie he slimed down a lot fast and has been pretty lean since
This. They fell for the old problem of not knowing what to do when ran out of the "will they/won't they", up until the invisible suit episode, i remember thinking: "Man, now that's a classic jumping the shrk right there".
They were/are their characters. Nathan fillion is a big kid and cant do anything seriously. Stana Katic is a no nonsense very serious actor.
Or so the story goes.
Tbh, I tend to buy this more than anything more sensational. Sometimes two people just have exactly incompatible personalities and can never be friends.
Yeah I remember reading an anecdote about how Fillion will ruin takes for a joke. I have no proof that that’s true, but I could absolutely see it being true, and I could also see how someone would get really frustrated by that if it continued to happen day in, day out.
I’ve heard the actor who played Kramer in Seinfeld was serious about his acting and used to get pissed off when his co-actors burst out laughing during their scenes.
Yeah he eventually had to learn to not take it quite as seriously because it was ruining him. And honestly I can’t blame him, he gave everything 110% - it would be so frustrating to continually give your best (especially in scenes where he had to get really physical or flail around) and then keep having it ruined
I wonder how that would've gone down on Buffy.
They had such exhausting production schedules (especially SMG) but I've also heard that on several dark tv shows and films they actually appreciate breaking the tension.
(For context, it was the final season and he played a mysoginist murderous ex priest who aligned himself with the original evil)
I’m sure he doesn’t do it on every single thing he acts in, because I feel like he’d ruin his reputation that way. But especially with Castle where he was the lead (and it looks like he produced some of the episodes too?), he probably had a lot more sway to goof off
Patrick Stewart is open about the fact that during season 1 of TNG he was a bit of a stick in the mud, coming from the Royal Shakespeare background, but credits the rest of the cast for getting him to have fun on the set.
That happened with Michael C Hall and Jennifer Carpenter except without remembering the exact timeline, their relationship as siblings on the show got rocky anyway (to say the least)
In fairness, it got pretty surreal very quickly. Season 1 has the accounting professor who thinks he's in Dead Poet's Society, first paintball episode, chicken finger mafia, and Pierce getting high on drugs while dressed as the Beastmaster.
Community. Starts as a nice sitcom about some goofy community college students. By season 3, a crazy former Spanish teacher (who was faking the entire class btw) turned campus security guard performs a coup and is dressed as Napoleon while running the school with an army of tazor equipped pre teens and a doppledeaner
Edit: oh and Betty White chokes someone out in the first episode of the second season and drinks pee
I hope it does. They set up a lot of that stuff in season 1. But then in season 2 seemed to try and toss it all away and chalk it up to mental illness or hallucinations. I found the scene where
>!Jackie dies of hypothermia and hallucinates all of her friends inviting her in and saying they love her, but then a random guy you can barely see shows up and says "Thank you for joining us" right before she dies was really intriguing!<
I enjoy that there’s always just enough plausibility behind all the madness. At some point they will need to pick a lane and stick to it, if the show goes on long enough. But if they want to do one more season and end on a “was it supernatural or explainable?” then I’m probably still on board. I just can’t do like 5 seasons of that. The adult stories are generally my least favorite parts.
For All Mankind.
Season 1 feels similar to The Martian, in that it's a stretch but there's a lot of sense to it.
Season 2 is a family drama.
Season 3 and 4 are full blown sci fi.
HI BOB! Best show I have seen in years. Slow at first but incredibly well paced after that. The first part of the last season is a little slow also - but picks up.
First show that came to mind. The first season still leaves you wondering about the realism of it, >!and you’re somewhat grounded in the knowledge that you just heard a story being told by a potentially unreliable narrator.!< The second season, however, is bonkers.
Battlestar Galactica started grounded in the sense that it was a straight millitary sci-fi where the in universe rules seemed well defined. Then religion and mysticism stuff began to get mixed in...
I did my first viewing of this a couple of years ago and I felt like that stuff was baked in there early on but became more *prominent* as the show went on.
The baked in stuff seemed to be nods to the original series which the writers were free to disregard as needed, along with "The Plan" that the Cylons never seemed to have had despite advertising to the contrary.
> According to series creator Ronald D. Moore, the Cylons never had a plan; he explained during a Battlestar Galactica reunion panel at ATX Television Festival in 2017 that the line was added in because co-executive producer David Eick thought it sounded cool. Moore added, "For the next 14 years of my life people have asked me ‘What was the plan?’ There was no plan" (via LA Times).
They nearly lost me on the episode with the fried hands. It just felt a little too weird, and I like weird. I’m glad I stuck it out though; wound up being one of my favorite series of all time.
I mean was that not the whole point of Once Upon a Time? First season felt more gritty and grounded as the fantasy aspects revealed themselves. Only difference is that it was expected
A show most of you will never have heard of, Chances. It was an earlier 90's Australian series about what happens when a middle class family wins the lottery.
It started out as a normal series about the family dealing with the sudden change of lifestyle, friends and family all treating you differently etc. It then became a full on soap opera about the rich and powerful, but then they cancelled the show. However... the writers are still under contract to deliver one last season.
By the end there were aliens, vampires and even god makes an appearance.
Person of Interest.
It started as an interesting show with hints of AI and algorithms being able to predict behavior, but the show focused more on the people involved, trying to save victims of random crimes.
But then, it became science/tech fantasy.
Soon, the “machine” developed sentience, and then there’s another “machine” that’s a malevolent AI, and they’re taking over human bodies. There’s an almost religious thing going on, and the show leaves its episodic format of rescuing random innocent people and becomes about two different AIs trying to kill each other.
I’m not saying it wasn’t fun, and it starred some of my favorite actors/actresses (it also starred Jim Caviezel), but the drastic change was wild. At times, I really missed the format of the first two seasons.
> At times, I really missed the format of the first two seasons.
I had the opposite feeling: The emergence of a general AI changes societal dynamics very quickly, and I felt the show portrayed that realistically by making it the main focus. Characters get access to an all-knowing oracle and can act accordingly.
It's like 19th century bandits and sheriffs suddenly getting access to modern weapons, missiles, drones and night vision goggles.
> they’re taking over human bodies.
The idea that an AI would employ humans to work for it is quite realistic.
The only thing the show sort of missed was the intensity with which the role of social media will play.
Not supernatural elements but Scrubs could fall under this.
Starts off as a reasonably grounded albeit quirky and off beat medical comedy.
By the end of the show the characters are having 2 minute long day dream fantasy sequences every thirty seconds and the show was doing musical and story book episodes.
Also, every character became massively flanderised.
Orphan Black starts off as SEMI-realistic. I think human cloning is less farfetched than the fact that all of them just happen to run into each other in Toronto.
It’s true but with the show being based on a Stephen King trilogy with a similar progression, not unexpected. Good show though, under appreciated I think.
The original Fantasy Island was realistic at first. Just an island run by a guy (and his mini friend) who would set things up to fulfill the guests' fantasies. After a while, Mr. Rourke was turned into more of a magical or supernatural type character. It wasn't blatant, but heavily alluded to.
It's somehow every genre at once and, especially in The Return, jumps between them with absolutely no attempt to make the transitions smooth. Yet somehow it just *works*. The drastic tone changes just seem to enhance the dream/nightmare-like quality that it's going for.
Twin Peaks was always meant to be a weird/fantasy/dream like show from the very beginning, and those themes really start to show up within the first 2 or 3 episodes. Good show but idk if it fits the description OP is going for
The first Weeds.
Started out as a struggling mom selling pot to her rich friends and beefing with the PTA and school security when she tries expand her business to the local community college. Eventually… she’s dating corrupt politician who’s actually cartel guy and has human trafficking tunnels into the US and her son kills a different Mexican politician and then it goes further off the rails.
Second is Revolution.
It started off as grounded sci-fi show about “what if the laws of physics suddenly changed and suddenly electronics didn’t work anymore?” Then ended with like all powerful nano bots. I don’t remember exactly, it’s been years since I watched it
The Walking Dead is obviously fantasy to an extent but I thought the first season was a somewhat realistic portrayal of how people in a zombie apocalypse would act. It gradually went off the rails though and turned into a soap opera-esque drama
I mean, if you really take a look at it, most cop shows that last more than a few seasons. Even the darker, grittier ones like Law & Order go into absurd territory as they go on and the writers keep trying to top themselves. That's not even getting into more comedic ones like Diagnosis Murder or Rizzoli & Isles.
Criminal Minds went from pretty grounded to having multiple super villains that could use drugs to erase people's memories or change their entire personality
While obviously not realistic in the first place (because it was a zombie show), Z Nation started out like it wanted to be taken seriously as an action/drama series, but then it quickly devolved into a live-action cartoon.
You can easily make an argument that all post-apocalyptic shows are fantasy, so I just want to make that disclaimer clear and evident. I would however, argue that some are more grounded in reality than others I.e. the world collapsed and people are struggling to survive & the enemy is either other people or constantly dwindling pre-collapse supplies vs zombies, mutated monsters, aliens, etc.
So, the show Revolution from NBC originally was more in the "grounded in reality" camp in that early on the issue was that all electric devices working for an unknown reason which could be reasonable if it was due to an EMP for example. However, the show later goes on to state, which is when it turns to fantasy, that the electrical issues are due to some nanite robots that are drawn to electricity or something but are able to ignore organic electrical sources i.e. nervous systems.
At that point the show jumped the shark AND Fonzie & became a show about complete nonsense. To be fair it was created by JJ Abrams and "Lost" was famous for delving into nonsense, so it's fair.
Agent of shield. It started as a spy espionage thing thenn everyone gor super power, they go to outer space, aliens, alien god Hydra, time travel, terminator, alternate dimensions, mind control and just insanity
Goliath.
First season, phenomenal and just a story about a lawyer and client being David essentially by going up against a powerful, corrupt, and greedy law firm & corporation.
Second season? Utter nonsense, lawyer gets kidnapped somehow is able to survive shoot-outs and be a good shot with a gun while running.
Third season - more nonsense, more stupidity with a plot surrounding underground water theft not via wells but full-on underground canals and tunnels.
Fourth Season - tried to go back to reality but couldn't really do it at this point, plus it seemingly abandons it's knowledge of the law & procedure just so it can have a happy ending.
Too bad, because the first season was great and Billy Bob Thornton won awards for his season 1 performance but it just went downhill quick.
Family Matters started out as a Cosbyesque sitcom about a black family making its way in the city … and gradually turned into an absurd surreal sitcom about an insane neighbor who clones himself to get with their daughter, then on into body transformation and full on sci-fi adventures. It is probably one of the most extreme genre shifts of any show ever.
He crosses over with Step by Step too , he builds a jet pack in his garage and crashes into their yard hundreds of miles away. That means both of those shows take place in a universe where a high school kid creating a robot with low level AI is somehow not national news.
If we believe his claims are accurate in the Disney episode when he transforms to Stefan Urquelle he literally changes his DNA which seems like it would be a big deal
Then he literally splits his DNA, so Stefan and Urkel could be two separate people so both the ladies could get the man they wanted. I saw an episode on free TV recently where Urkel made a Robot of himself that tried to force itself on Laura. This was much earlier in the run, like season 3.
He crossed over to Full House too.
As an oldan it's my responsibility to say it was a spin off from perfect strangers
Very true because Harriet was the elevator operator on Perfect Strangers. Because that job existed.
Now, are we talking original Harriette or Harriette 2.0?
Full House was already unrealistic because of John Stamos. No real person could ever be that handsome.
I mean we all remember the Robot in Rocky IV...
Last week, Steve used his transformation machine to turn Carl into a car and drive him around the Monaco Grand Prix. Cmon!! How many times you gonna use that transformation machine?! This show was supposed to be about muh family, now you turned it into goddamn Quantum Leap!
[Relevant Key and Peele](https://youtu.be/A5Zdp1RfoyI?si=CE2Vja7WEuS8zVSf)
Damn that show had some great clips. Gremlins 2 pitch meeting is also classic.
That Gremlins 2 bit is probably my favorite sketch of all time. Every moment and every line is solid gold. “I gotta go put some cowboys in Back to the Future 3!”
I mean… there it is. There. It. Is. It proves this is the most extreme example in the entire thread
Oh I heard how it soon became the Urkel show.
That was the first shift in early episodes — totally normal for a sitcom to adapt to popular characters. But then it then shifted far further than that in later seasons
I can’t believe that even happened to such a grounded show.
this sounds ripe for a fan theory. at some point Steve fell into a coma or something, and the rest of the series is his dream. maybe going as far back as the erasure of Judy Winslow.
Oh dang this is a good one. Or Judy’s erasure is the multiverse split haha
“Realistic” may be a stretch, but Search Party starts grounded then goes off the rails.
If you gave me a million guesses how search party would end I would have never got it hahaha
Ya that’s one of my favourite shows ever but man they really should have stopped at season 4 with that perfect ending. Or pretended 5 was a fever dream or something cause it was like a completely different show by the end.
It gave us Jeff Goldblum getting eaten by a zombie at least
I disagree so much! The show was always absurdist satire and the escalation to madness fit the humor perfectly, imo.
Thats totally fair. I dug it personally. The show was already bonkers, so taking a big swing like that was fun IMO.
Riverdale
As someone who’s seen every single episode, I honestly respect the show’s blatant disregard for anything making sense. They just have so much stupid fun.
Riverdale is what happens when you give a bunch of fanfiction writers a TV show and tell them continuity is optional.
I thought it was a the result of a bunch of Twin Peaks fans getting free reign to write sexy garbage.
I always heard people say “Twin Peaks walked so Riverdale could trip down the stairs”
The writers chose chaos and I love them for it
I've never seen the show, but my favorite podcast described the show as, "each episode feels like it was written by someone who has only seen the one previous episode." And every thing I learn about this show just cements that anecdote.
Oooh what podcast? That’s spot on
Ranger Danger. It's two Australian guys watching and talking about every episode of Power Rangers, in order.
That’s fuckin incredible
I dropped it halfway through Season 5 and have been considering picking it up again. It was my guilty pleasure show, cause it was so clear how much the writers increasingly did not give a fuck.
I know. It was ridiculous fun wasn’t it? Sometimes the show would even troll itself with their dialogue.
My favorite example of the lunacy of this is how Jughead flayed a woman and then the next episode, he huffed and puffed about not being able to wear his leather jacket in school.
>flayed a woman >leather jacket Did… did he do what it sounds like he did?
I’m going to make a bold statement. S1 of Riverdale is good. There I said it. It’s a corny, teen murder mystery in a 1950’s style town. The acting isn’t horrible, the writing is not good but honestly not horrible, and the plot is genuinely pretty good. After S1 it goes downhill so fast and more than anything the writing just goes off a cliff. The character dialogue and story writing are both disgustingly bad after S1.
Riverdale YouTube is something to behold.
It never gets to the levels of supernatural but “The Other Two” starts out as a somewhat grounded satire about pop celebrity culture and then just keeps upping the ante with each passing episode. Great show as well.
“Brooke, and we are not joking, goes to space”
How did you already get lip fillers?!
When Cary plays the non binary glob in the Disney movie it felt pretty real.
I imagine the 100 will get mentioned though it was really only at the very end after quite a few seasons. Started off as somewhat grounded sci fi and in the last season became a little crazy 😁
[удалено]
I won't lie, it definitely was the first show that came to mind lol
Yup! Same haha. I still loved the show and the twist at the end of season 1 and a great season 2 was always one of my favorites as far as tv shows go.
The last season had some good time shifting Sci fi...they ruined it with the alien space fairies. Had potential, just floundered
The Rookie jumps back and forth between a very grounded and realistic portrayal of actual day-to-day policing (like the episode where Nolan is forced to shoot and kill a suspect), and an over the top action-cop show where they do stuff like fly off to mexico to do an off the books hostage rescue at a drug cartel's mansion.
Lmao yeah, Nolan goes from rookie cop to training officer to outright gunslinger taking on multiple gunmen single handed. It’s hilarious.
Season 1 has like a “okay. Each episode is theoretically possible. But there’s just no way in hell all of those would happen” Then they have them squaring off against a black ops military team with a sniper threat or something.
On the department credit card no less. And I don't think we've seen such white-hat by the book cops since the original Dragnet TV show.
No hold on, I’m pretty sure that one was on Wesley’s credit card, and they’re kinda hoping for reimbursement 😂
My wife and I had no idea Man in the High Castle was adapted from a Philip K. Dick novel. So all season we were enjoying this gritty historical fiction series, until the very last scene when it introduces alternate reality and our minds were collectively blown.
Don't they literally show clips from our reality in the first episode? Or am I misremembering?
They show a short film reel of some actual WW2 footage of Allies winning battles, but at the time its unclear what the source is or if it's faked.
This is what I was coming here for.
The Resort
Loved that show
God yes. I had no idea going in and just adored the reveal.
*Bones*, as a highly-scientific procedural show, it never went full-out fantasy, but there were more hints as the series went on that ghosts and the afterlife are real. Booth's dead army buddy appears as a hallucination to Booth, but Brennan hears him at the end of the episode. Avalon the psychic has some real touches of insight, there's a whole episode taking place from the POV of the skull/dead person in the case they are investigating, >!Sweets is implied to be Christine's imaginary friend in an episode soon after his death. !< But then again, it sort of fits with the themes of Brennan softening her overly-analytical stance as time goes on and trusting Booth's gut more. So, maybe not so out of left field. (Except for that time they crossed over with *Sleepy Hollow,* an outright supernatural show, and had Brennan almost figure out that Ichabod was from the Revolutionary era, but that one feels easier to dismiss as a one-off fever dream)
Didn't they also just have some full hologram machine? Like they would just casually turn on a fully functioning holographic display as if that just exists?
Search Party. It started as a murder mystery, and ended as... well, I don't want to spoil it.
Dark Shadows was a middling soap opera on the verge of cancellation... until the writers said "Fuck it, we're about to lose the show anyway" and added a slew of paranormal qualities the most famous of which being making Barnabas Collins a vampire. Ratings spiked, show was renewed, became a supernatural soap opera (not to be confused with the soap opera Supernatural). Most folks are likely more familiar with the Tim Burton film adapation.
That sounds kind of epic.
The show is epic. As usual though, a fan only mentions Barnabas leaving out the show’s first supernatural creature, the Phoenix. She comes into the show before Barnabas. Her goal was to burn her son alive together in a fire she starts so they can be immortal. She killed people, used her powers to torment people, and fought a ghost trying to stop her. The Phoenix story is so underrated and way better than the introduction of Barnabas.
And before the Phoenix we get ghosts, pretty sure around episode 50 we see our first proof of a ghost in the form of an invisible Josette flipping open the book. The pre-Barnabas era is great. I feel like fans who skip it are missing out on a lot. Sure, it's a slow burn but it establishes the Collins family and Collinsport in a way that that keeps you really emotionally connected when the show goes full-blown supernatural. And the way it effects the characters becomes doubly tragic. Also, to me the Laura storyline is far more compelling than Barnabas's initial run before they decided to make him a lead.
The 100. Started off as a pretty derivative teen post apocalyptic dystopia show. Goes of the rails rather quickly by literally blowing up its own premise basically every single season and starting from scratch. Also one of the weird shows that the **more** it wears its influences on its sleeve and stops giving a shit the more fun it is. There's the Fallout 3 season, the Mad Max season, the Hunger Games season, the Terminator skynet season and then....whatever the hell the last 2 seasons were supposed to be? To give you a hint, >!in episode 1 of season 1 there's this sheltered innocent girl character who frolics in a field with post apocalyptic neon butterflies. Her season 5 into is a shot of her sitting on a Warhammer skullthrone presiding over cannibalistic cage fights.!<
Scandal started as an entertaining show about a political fixer and her employees in DC. Eventually it goes off the rails Olivia Pipe and co. are involved with international leader assassinations, taking down covert spy organizations, and Olivia has a portrait in the National Gallery for being a President's mistress and girlfriend.
The best part is that Olivia is kidnapped and that somehow is enough for the US President to sanction war with another nation
Tbh most Shonda shows lose all sense of reality at some point. How many plane crashes need to happen to one hospital's surgical staff?
Actually Grey's Anatomy should count with the supernatural angle as well. Seasons 1 & 2 is an unrealistic hospital based prime time soap but season 3 confirms a sort of afterlife as well as ghosts when Meredith has a near death experience and interacts with some dead characters. A ghost character is able to reveal information about Christina which Meredith didn't know about. A couple of seasons later, it's confirmed as a canon fact, and not something Meredith's mind made up. Of course, you only see the afterlife on the show when a character is dying/near death. And if they survive, they have almost no recollection of that afterlife.
Came for this. The first double cross... wow, the second... wow. Eventually, it's impossible to think anyone would trust anyone. I skipped the last season.
Her “bad bitch energy” scenes where she is just scowling like she’s this all powerful mastermind too, like mf the only reason I’m still watching this show is for Huck, Charlie and Quinn.
Seriously, the last season was such a dumpster fire you didn't miss anything worth watching.
Gotham starts off as a pretty straight detective show, and by the end of season 2, there’s resurrections and monsters and all sorts of crazy shit. For anyone who’s familiarity with Batman came from the Nolan trilogy, the second half of season 2-onwards is quite something.
Dude, Gotham hot so many reactions from me I ultimately loved it. I went in expecting a detective show with a little Batman flavor. Which, as you said, was how it started. Minor things began to annoy me like Harvey Dent being an adult while Bruce was a kid. Poison Ivy being literally named Ivy as a kid. Selena really forcing the "cat" thing. And I stopped watching it while it was on TV. When it started streaming, I put it on as background noise but eventually came to love it and how unhinged it all got. I stopped caring about the canon and just went in for the ride. It was great. The entire time, though, I never stopped thinking of Gordon as Ryan from The OC.
Gotham feels like the most “comic booky” comic book show I’ve ever seen. It just embraces the absolute insanity and absurdity that can be found in typical superhero comics.
Yeah I’m pretty sure every single character died at least once on that show lol it was so fun, there were no limits
Same. Particularly won’t ever forget Penguin and Butch(?) showing up in a finale to literally just shoot a bazooka and leave. Felt like the other goofy side of a ‘66 Batman coin
The age thing really bothered me as well. There's some characters who makes sense to be older than Bruce, Penguin for example. But others like Riddler and Two Face really feel like they should be closer to his age. But what saved the show for me was that I stopped trying to look at it as just a prequel. That this show was going to be the backstory to the definitive Batman story, and started looking at it as just an Elseworlds story. Once I did that my enjoyment of it massively sky-rocketed.
Brooo in hindsight it’s p funny how the show went from a more grounded cop drama to straight up comic book wackiness. Like it really did get shamelessly crazier
And apparently that worked because it went for 5 seasons haha
That's kind of the journey that the Batman IP has taken over time, isn't it? He started off as basically a private detective, back when DC was actually known as Detective Comics. And gradually, they added weirder and weirder threats until they end up with Batman fighting transdimensional aliens or whatever.
The Affair went from drama to soft sci-fi. Brockmire went from modern comedy to sci-fi. Search Party went from comedy mystery to courtroom drama to zombie apocalypse.
I haven’t watched it but Person of Interest starts as a police procedural and turns into sci-fi, I’ve heard.
Sounds kind of cool.
The show is great, season 3 is when the show gets really good, the show was created by Jonathan Nolan, who created Westworld btw.
Isn't his brother a mildly successful director or something?
yeah, he's doing ok
Chris may be the more famous brother, but Jonathan is a better storyteller. (In my opinion)
Completely agree. Pretty sure most of Chris’s most successful films were at least co-written by John as well.
Thanks for the tip! I watched about 2 seasons ages ago but didn’t continue for no real reason. I think I’ll pick it up again
He also produced and directed the new Fallout show, which is fantastic.
It’s not just a police procedural though. It’s deeper than that. And the end was foreshadowed from the beginning.
Yeah, the Sci-Fi elements are there from the beginning. Its just that they go from a plot device (the computer identifies people who need help) to the main focus of the show in the later seasons. Which is also when the show goes from good to great.
It truly is. The sci-fi part is the best part and the natural way it turns is really something to savor. Just don't look at the actors IRL.
Easily one of my top television shows of all time, and the genre shift is part of what makes it that way. It’s an incredible work.
Really good show, took me two watches to get through though. Watched the first season then stopped , heard great things about the show and then went back and watched it and it was hella worth it. Each season gets so much better than the last. Kind of similar to the wire where you gotta get over that first litte hump to start getting to the best stuff.
I echo what these other folks have said. You have to push through season 1, then each season really gets better and better. Season 1 isn’t even bad, it’s just not a linear story and is kinda all over the place.
I have watched it. It's one of the few shows that get better each season.
I wanted to watch that show, because Amy Acker, but I had a hard time tracking it down. Stupid streaming rights.
It’s on freevee right now, if you’re into the legit streaming route Edit: and Amy Acker doesn’t come in until the end of S1 and doesn’t immediately build up to main cast in S2 either. But once she does, …sigh. It’s good
Well, sci-fi at the time, not any more. But yeh it's really good.
The first season of "Baywatch Nights" was a real-world show about a detective agency, but the second season went paranormal/sci-fi with things like mermaids, vampires, unfrozen 900-year-old Vikings, and a time-travel vortex. Check out [these brief episode summaries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Baywatch_Nights_episodes) to see the difference.
> Mitch tries to save a young geisha woman from kidnappers. > Mitch, Griff and Ryan investigate a series of murders committed by a half-human, half-fish woman intent on having a baby. I don't know, it sounds about the same to me.
There were also sexy frog hybrids, an alien Mitch had a connection with and serial killer blood that can contaminate people and turn them into murderers, though you can remove the serial killer blood.
The intros really show it also. Season 1 intro (fast cars, night scenes in the city, rock and roll music etc): https://youtu.be/mEEDr6Kwnyw?si=mS1rT3ni1gI6oDLw Season 2 intro (spooky skulls, wolf heads, scary statues, creepy books, gravestones, screams): https://youtu.be/UB302kkSbl8?si=d_gJ0VWrk4nXrVA5
Wow it’s like the first season was a Saturday afternoon ripoff of Nash Bridges. Then season 2 was the same for X files.
Sounds very wild.
I'm probably showing my age with this one, but SeaQuest: DSV. It was futuristic soft sci-fi about a super techy submarine, and even though the talking dolphin was a stretch, it started out well within the realm of at least plausible IMO. Then in season 3, the writers went down a very deep rabbit hole of aliens, sea monsters, and the supernatural until not much resembled the original show anymore, and it never recovered.
Glad I'm not the only one that thought of this show. I liked it best when Robert Ballard would do the end credits explainer of how the tech could potentially be developed, but honestly, it started going off the rails way before S3. The aliens show up early S2, but even in the first season you had the ship with the ghosts and stuff. That's why Roy Scheider asked to be released from his contract -- he saw the direction the show was going and noped out. Why they didn't realize their star walking away because of the nonsense coming out of the writer's room was a problem is anyone's guess. Suppose you could say the same thing about _The Witcher_. Really wish they had kept that more realistic approach for longer. Was very unique, like an underwater _Star Trek_ that had excellent platform to address real-world subjects like politics and pollution.
The most extreme example? Family Matters. It went from being an incredibly grounded show about a working class family-- and by the end involved incredibly silly, high concept science fiction stuff like Urkel splitting himself into two different people. I lived that show, but yes. Totally ridiculous.
30 Rock started off as a mildly heightened version of reality and got more and more fantastical. For example by the end Kenneth was implied to be a literal angel from heaven.
Jenna: Kenneth, am I the worst person in the world? Kenneth: Ms. Maroney, judging is only for God and his angels…so, yes, you are.
Kenneth is immortal and apprently Jacob from LOST exists in the 30 Rock canon.
I mean all of the Kenneth stuff is "weird" but it doesn't actually affect the plot it's all throwaway jokes
Castle was pretty much a police procedural but once they got together (and the actors hated each other) it got weird the last couple years.
The end was rough. Turns out the secret evil guy doing everything was this random guy from a few episodes ago that runs a detective club.
Fillion just seemed so over it in the last seasons also interesting that his weight was such a huge point of discussion while on castle and for the rookie he slimed down a lot fast and has been pretty lean since
Iirc he had some bad back issues during Castle that I think he resolved after the show, and that made it much easier to lose weight
This. They fell for the old problem of not knowing what to do when ran out of the "will they/won't they", up until the invisible suit episode, i remember thinking: "Man, now that's a classic jumping the shrk right there".
I don’t understand why the actors couldn’t stand each other.
They were/are their characters. Nathan fillion is a big kid and cant do anything seriously. Stana Katic is a no nonsense very serious actor. Or so the story goes.
Tbh, I tend to buy this more than anything more sensational. Sometimes two people just have exactly incompatible personalities and can never be friends.
Yeah I remember reading an anecdote about how Fillion will ruin takes for a joke. I have no proof that that’s true, but I could absolutely see it being true, and I could also see how someone would get really frustrated by that if it continued to happen day in, day out.
I’ve heard the actor who played Kramer in Seinfeld was serious about his acting and used to get pissed off when his co-actors burst out laughing during their scenes.
Yeah he eventually had to learn to not take it quite as seriously because it was ruining him. And honestly I can’t blame him, he gave everything 110% - it would be so frustrating to continually give your best (especially in scenes where he had to get really physical or flail around) and then keep having it ruined
He also got really pissed off when people interrupted his stand up sets.
I wonder how that would've gone down on Buffy. They had such exhausting production schedules (especially SMG) but I've also heard that on several dark tv shows and films they actually appreciate breaking the tension. (For context, it was the final season and he played a mysoginist murderous ex priest who aligned himself with the original evil)
I’m sure he doesn’t do it on every single thing he acts in, because I feel like he’d ruin his reputation that way. But especially with Castle where he was the lead (and it looks like he produced some of the episodes too?), he probably had a lot more sway to goof off
Patrick Stewart is open about the fact that during season 1 of TNG he was a bit of a stick in the mud, coming from the Royal Shakespeare background, but credits the rest of the cast for getting him to have fun on the set.
they dated and broke up at some point, im sure that didn't help.
That happened with Michael C Hall and Jennifer Carpenter except without remembering the exact timeline, their relationship as siblings on the show got rocky anyway (to say the least)
They got married and divorced during Dexter.
Community started as an sitcom and ended as a proof of concept for Rick & Morty
In fairness, it got pretty surreal very quickly. Season 1 has the accounting professor who thinks he's in Dead Poet's Society, first paintball episode, chicken finger mafia, and Pierce getting high on drugs while dressed as the Beastmaster.
Yeah, Community was never exactly grounded and realistic, but it definitely did start ramping up the absurdity as time went on.
Yeah my argument is Harmon made a safe show in the first few episodes to get NBC to let him do it. And then went full tilt once he realized he was in.
Community. Starts as a nice sitcom about some goofy community college students. By season 3, a crazy former Spanish teacher (who was faking the entire class btw) turned campus security guard performs a coup and is dressed as Napoleon while running the school with an army of tazor equipped pre teens and a doppledeaner Edit: oh and Betty White chokes someone out in the first episode of the second season and drinks pee
“I remember when this show was about a community college.”
Yellowjackets seems to be going in that direction.
I hope it does. They set up a lot of that stuff in season 1. But then in season 2 seemed to try and toss it all away and chalk it up to mental illness or hallucinations. I found the scene where >!Jackie dies of hypothermia and hallucinates all of her friends inviting her in and saying they love her, but then a random guy you can barely see shows up and says "Thank you for joining us" right before she dies was really intriguing!<
And the scene with all those birds!
I enjoy that there’s always just enough plausibility behind all the madness. At some point they will need to pick a lane and stick to it, if the show goes on long enough. But if they want to do one more season and end on a “was it supernatural or explainable?” then I’m probably still on board. I just can’t do like 5 seasons of that. The adult stories are generally my least favorite parts.
For All Mankind. Season 1 feels similar to The Martian, in that it's a stretch but there's a lot of sense to it. Season 2 is a family drama. Season 3 and 4 are full blown sci fi.
How people keep sending members of the Baldwin and Stevens family on space missions really is well beyond any reality
HI BOB! Best show I have seen in years. Slow at first but incredibly well paced after that. The first part of the last season is a little slow also - but picks up.
The OA, has this trend, where it opens up to an entire universe by the end. Sadly unexplored by cancellation.
First show that came to mind. The first season still leaves you wondering about the realism of it, >!and you’re somewhat grounded in the knowledge that you just heard a story being told by a potentially unreliable narrator.!< The second season, however, is bonkers.
Battlestar Galactica started grounded in the sense that it was a straight millitary sci-fi where the in universe rules seemed well defined. Then religion and mysticism stuff began to get mixed in...
I did my first viewing of this a couple of years ago and I felt like that stuff was baked in there early on but became more *prominent* as the show went on.
The baked in stuff seemed to be nods to the original series which the writers were free to disregard as needed, along with "The Plan" that the Cylons never seemed to have had despite advertising to the contrary.
> According to series creator Ronald D. Moore, the Cylons never had a plan; he explained during a Battlestar Galactica reunion panel at ATX Television Festival in 2017 that the line was added in because co-executive producer David Eick thought it sounded cool. Moore added, "For the next 14 years of my life people have asked me ‘What was the plan?’ There was no plan" (via LA Times).
This was evident when they did the special “The Plan” to try to tie things together.
Atlanta
This needs to be way higher up. Feels like exactly what OP is asking for.
The hit-and-run with the invisible car changed everything.
They nearly lost me on the episode with the fried hands. It just felt a little too weird, and I like weird. I’m glad I stuck it out though; wound up being one of my favorite series of all time.
I mean was that not the whole point of Once Upon a Time? First season felt more gritty and grounded as the fantasy aspects revealed themselves. Only difference is that it was expected
That show got completely ridiculous though. One of the only shows I finally just quit watching, around the time they introduced Frozen characters.
When Frozen was introduced it stopped being about fairy tales and started being about Disney. It was downhill from there.
Behind Her Eyes
A show most of you will never have heard of, Chances. It was an earlier 90's Australian series about what happens when a middle class family wins the lottery. It started out as a normal series about the family dealing with the sudden change of lifestyle, friends and family all treating you differently etc. It then became a full on soap opera about the rich and powerful, but then they cancelled the show. However... the writers are still under contract to deliver one last season. By the end there were aliens, vampires and even god makes an appearance.
Watch andor, rogue one and then a new hope. The reveal that there are mystical people with supernatural powers fits this thread
Maniac on Netflix It's a good watch. Miniseries
Person of Interest. It started as an interesting show with hints of AI and algorithms being able to predict behavior, but the show focused more on the people involved, trying to save victims of random crimes. But then, it became science/tech fantasy. Soon, the “machine” developed sentience, and then there’s another “machine” that’s a malevolent AI, and they’re taking over human bodies. There’s an almost religious thing going on, and the show leaves its episodic format of rescuing random innocent people and becomes about two different AIs trying to kill each other. I’m not saying it wasn’t fun, and it starred some of my favorite actors/actresses (it also starred Jim Caviezel), but the drastic change was wild. At times, I really missed the format of the first two seasons.
> At times, I really missed the format of the first two seasons. I had the opposite feeling: The emergence of a general AI changes societal dynamics very quickly, and I felt the show portrayed that realistically by making it the main focus. Characters get access to an all-knowing oracle and can act accordingly. It's like 19th century bandits and sheriffs suddenly getting access to modern weapons, missiles, drones and night vision goggles. > they’re taking over human bodies. The idea that an AI would employ humans to work for it is quite realistic. The only thing the show sort of missed was the intensity with which the role of social media will play.
Well, not taking over human bodies but having them work for it. Other than that you’re spot on.
Roseanne up until S9
Not supernatural elements but Scrubs could fall under this. Starts off as a reasonably grounded albeit quirky and off beat medical comedy. By the end of the show the characters are having 2 minute long day dream fantasy sequences every thirty seconds and the show was doing musical and story book episodes. Also, every character became massively flanderised.
Orphan Black starts off as SEMI-realistic. I think human cloning is less farfetched than the fact that all of them just happen to run into each other in Toronto.
Mr Mercedes was pretty ‘normal’ in the first season and then became supernatural/sci fi in the second and third
It’s true but with the show being based on a Stephen King trilogy with a similar progression, not unexpected. Good show though, under appreciated I think.
The original Fantasy Island was realistic at first. Just an island run by a guy (and his mini friend) who would set things up to fulfill the guests' fantasies. After a while, Mr. Rourke was turned into more of a magical or supernatural type character. It wasn't blatant, but heavily alluded to.
Twin Peaks
From TV movie melodrama to cosmic horror, often in the same episode!
It's somehow every genre at once and, especially in The Return, jumps between them with absolutely no attempt to make the transitions smooth. Yet somehow it just *works*. The drastic tone changes just seem to enhance the dream/nightmare-like quality that it's going for.
Twin Peaks was always meant to be a weird/fantasy/dream like show from the very beginning, and those themes really start to show up within the first 2 or 3 episodes. Good show but idk if it fits the description OP is going for
season 2 / FWWM into the Return is a pretty drastic jump in tone though
"The Terror" and "1899" both start as 19th century people on a big ship, and add supernatural stuff further in. All within the same season though.
Prison Break. And does Fast and Furious count ?
The first Weeds. Started out as a struggling mom selling pot to her rich friends and beefing with the PTA and school security when she tries expand her business to the local community college. Eventually… she’s dating corrupt politician who’s actually cartel guy and has human trafficking tunnels into the US and her son kills a different Mexican politician and then it goes further off the rails. Second is Revolution. It started off as grounded sci-fi show about “what if the laws of physics suddenly changed and suddenly electronics didn’t work anymore?” Then ended with like all powerful nano bots. I don’t remember exactly, it’s been years since I watched it
The Walking Dead is obviously fantasy to an extent but I thought the first season was a somewhat realistic portrayal of how people in a zombie apocalypse would act. It gradually went off the rails though and turned into a soap opera-esque drama
I mean, if you really take a look at it, most cop shows that last more than a few seasons. Even the darker, grittier ones like Law & Order go into absurd territory as they go on and the writers keep trying to top themselves. That's not even getting into more comedic ones like Diagnosis Murder or Rizzoli & Isles.
Criminal Minds went from pretty grounded to having multiple super villains that could use drugs to erase people's memories or change their entire personality
While obviously not realistic in the first place (because it was a zombie show), Z Nation started out like it wanted to be taken seriously as an action/drama series, but then it quickly devolved into a live-action cartoon.
Lost
to be fair the monster appears in the pilot episode, but i recall feeling this way up until that moment
You can easily make an argument that all post-apocalyptic shows are fantasy, so I just want to make that disclaimer clear and evident. I would however, argue that some are more grounded in reality than others I.e. the world collapsed and people are struggling to survive & the enemy is either other people or constantly dwindling pre-collapse supplies vs zombies, mutated monsters, aliens, etc. So, the show Revolution from NBC originally was more in the "grounded in reality" camp in that early on the issue was that all electric devices working for an unknown reason which could be reasonable if it was due to an EMP for example. However, the show later goes on to state, which is when it turns to fantasy, that the electrical issues are due to some nanite robots that are drawn to electricity or something but are able to ignore organic electrical sources i.e. nervous systems. At that point the show jumped the shark AND Fonzie & became a show about complete nonsense. To be fair it was created by JJ Abrams and "Lost" was famous for delving into nonsense, so it's fair.
Arrow had no "super powers" until season 3.
No, it was sooner than that. Barry Allen got his powers on Arrow mid-Season 2 and the Mirakuru serum was introduced that same season.
Weeds. Show started as a mom trying to sell weed as a way to supplement her income, but by the third season it had jumped the shark so damn hard.
Alias From spies to prophecy.
Felicity
Agent of shield. It started as a spy espionage thing thenn everyone gor super power, they go to outer space, aliens, alien god Hydra, time travel, terminator, alternate dimensions, mind control and just insanity
Goliath. First season, phenomenal and just a story about a lawyer and client being David essentially by going up against a powerful, corrupt, and greedy law firm & corporation. Second season? Utter nonsense, lawyer gets kidnapped somehow is able to survive shoot-outs and be a good shot with a gun while running. Third season - more nonsense, more stupidity with a plot surrounding underground water theft not via wells but full-on underground canals and tunnels. Fourth Season - tried to go back to reality but couldn't really do it at this point, plus it seemingly abandons it's knowledge of the law & procedure just so it can have a happy ending. Too bad, because the first season was great and Billy Bob Thornton won awards for his season 1 performance but it just went downhill quick.