(risky trope) A show changes genres mid way

[u/ErlikHan6]

The 100: the show starts as a somewhat grounded post apocalypse where humans who have taken refuge in a space station return to earth after it has become inhabitable again and resources on the space station run out. At first the show is about survival in a hostile environment. It slowly introduces more and more sci fi elements. At first, it's an Aİ that wants control over humanity. Towards the end of the show, the main characters have traveled throughout the galaxy, met humans from other planets, some of which have settled among ruins of ancient alien species, where they try to contact more advanced alien species in order to achieve "transcendence": rid humans of their physical bodies and become a more advanced lifeform.

AOT: this one is less gradual than the 100 and the change comes after a massive plot twist. The first 3 seasons of the show are about a relatively primitive society of humans who live inside humongous walls. Outside the walls are titans: giant monstrous creatures which hunt and devour humans. After a big plot twist and reveal, the society finds out that there is a whole bigger world out there, and the rest of the world is plotting to genocide them. They quickly industrialize after this discovery and wage war against other countries.

[u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

The reason for the tonal shift wasn't just a change in networks, it was the creators earnestly thinking the show wasn't even going to air in America anymore.

Being a Canadian production, the creators all came from a background where children's content was generally allowed to be substantially more mature. They had been airing in both Canada and the US at the start, but after the falling out with ABC they figured they just wouldn't have an American distribution anymore, and therefore may as well stop trying to fit that cultural mindset.

It turns out they did still get the final season aired in the US, which is how we arrived at my parents being deeply confused by how this series started with saturday morning cartoon shenanigans and had people's eyes getting ripped out by the end.

[u/Simon_Drake → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

It stopped airing in England with that change of networks. I don't know if it was a contract thing or whoever made the decisions in the UK didn't like the new tone. But it ended on a huge cliffhanger that annoyed me for a decade. Until wikipedia episode summaries told me what happened next.

I heard the original recordings have been rescued from dying media formats and there's new higher res copies of the show that haven't been accessible before. Maybe I should rewatch it.

[u/Jarvis_The_Dense → u/Simon_Drake]

And if course, even the actual ending was still another cliffhanger

[u/Derpogama → u/Simon_Drake]

We also never got the god damn movies (which I think is just the condensed later seasons?) here in the UK, it wasn't until much later that I saw the series had an actual god damn ending. I distinctly remember the initial season with the change being aired on...CITV but like you said, they never aired the seasons after that.

Mind you not having an ending was sort of standard. Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors didn't have an ending, Dungeons and Dragons didn't have an ending (even though the planned it). In fact it was great to see Mysterious Cities of Gold and Ulysses 31 both got actual endings as it felt rare at the time.

[u/Simon_Drake → u/Derpogama]

I don't remember Mysterious Cities Of Gold personally, only from seeing the banger theme song in compilations of 80s/90s cartoon openings.

But I remember Pirates Of Dark Water. Collect the 12 ancient amulets to save the world from the legally-distinct metaphor for oil spills. They found 3 and the show ended. Which is a pretty metaphor for environmentalism, a few steps in the right direction but not enough and the world is doomed.

[u/Karkava → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

Well, that does explain why Total Drama feels like it should be for teens and young adults at times.

[u/Lokishougan → u/Karkava]

Its animated Degrassi lol

[u/icehopper → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

Good god, the way I audibly freaked out as a child during the Enzo eye-slash scene! I thought certain things just couldn't happen to characters in cartoons, my whole world was shook.

[u/Jarvis_The_Dense → u/icehopper]

I still remember my parents refusing to let me watch that episode. Not seeing the thing in full because my brother had seen it first, I assumed it was just the creepy skull image that appeared over dead fighters' portraits they didn't want me seeing.

[u/ihavewaytoomanyminis → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

I loved the homages to scifi stuff in this show.

There's a tribute episode to The Prisoner, which turned out to be a dream from Enzo getting KO'd by a golf ball. And then there's always Enzo's gun that has a mode called Deathblossom.

[u/psilokan → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

Being a Canadian production, the creators all came from a background where children's content was generally allowed to be substantially more mature.

As a Canadian that sounds ass backwards to me. We had to call Beast Wars "Beasties" instead because we werent allowed the word Wars in a children's show.

[u/Derpogama → u/psilokan]

Ooof and I thought renaming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles was bad because for some reason at the time the UK censorship board had a hate boner for anything martial arts related (seriously for some reason a lot of Martial Arts movies were rated much higher than they needed to be. Operation Condor and Armor of God, both Jackie Chan comedy adventure martial arts films are rated at 15s when they're, at best, PG rated)

[u/psilokan → u/Derpogama]

It was similar here. I remember there being a ton of pushback on Power Rangers and all the Canadian stations dropped it. I even recall them polling the parents and having them call in and they were pretty universally against it.

The ironic thing was you just flipped the channels a few times and could watch it on a American station anyways.

[u/Jarvis_The_Dense → u/psilokan]

Well that was the explanation I heard anyway. Going off of how I also knew The Suicide Squad only got a 14A up there when it was R down here it seemed plausible, but you would know more about this than me. Maybe the source I heard that from was just wrong

[u/blitzbom → u/Jarvis_The_Dense]

I had no idea about the why, I just knew that it was cool as hell.