History Main / HowUnscientific

* ''Series/TheNewAdventuresOfRobinHood'' was mostly a ''Series/{{Xena|Warrior Princess}}'' homage Fantasy, but the episode "Dragon from the Sky" was about an alien crash-landing in Sherwood and repairing his space-ship in time before the Sheriff dissected him.
* This was basically what [[IncrediblyLamePun torpedoed]] ''Series/SeaquestDSV''. The first season was fairly hard scifi with plots that revolved around real oceanic phenomenon. Then in the second season ExecutiveMeddling forced the introduction of outlandish soft scifi stories; including the god Poseidon being real, time travel, and aliens. The How Unscientificness of it pissed off Creator/RoyScheider so much that he left the show.

** This is especially bizarre when you consider the companion novel ''LightNovel/AnotherNote'', where Beyond Birthday (somehow) had The Eyes, and L knew that. (To be fair, however, this LightNovel was not written until ''after'' the series was over, and was not originally part of the canon, but absorbed into it later. So it could be considered a type of RetCon.)

* TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}} campaigns can very easily come across this way, due to the extent of the FantasyKitchenSink being somewhat hidden at first. On the surface, at least, the setting of Golarion seems like pretty straightforward Tolkeinian High Fantasy - elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards, gods, demons, all present and correct. The technology level by default doesn't ever exceed muskets and cannon. There's teleportation and interdimensional travel but it's always portrayed in MagiBabble that squares it with the expected parameters of a High Fantasy setting. So it can be a little jarring the first time you find out that Golarion is ''also'' home to some alien lifeforms both organic and robotic that rode in on a crashing spaceship, or that some of the setting's "demigods" are actually very powerful artificial intelligences, or that one of the planets in Golarion's solar system is canonically a [[ThatsNoMoon dormant space station]], or that the planet Earth implicitly exists in the same universe and (thanks to the Public Domain) [[CosmicHorrorReveal actual literal Cthulhu]] is currently asleep beneath its oceans while Literature/BabaYaga conquered a Golorian country for the lols.

* This reaction, taken to ''extremely'' FanDumb levels (''death threats'' were involved), forced a significant change to ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic III: Armageddon's Blade'': originally the expansion pack was supposed to be centered around a ''science fiction'' faction, the Forge, and the attempts to stop it from taking over the world, but that had to be thrown out and another story quickly come up with. Whether this trope is an accurate reaction is... more complex: the ''setting'' was a clear ScienceFantasy one, so looked at from that perspective the Forge was in keeping with genre conventions. ''[[MorePopularSpinoff Heroes]]'', on the other hand, had previously only loosely alluded to the science fiction elements in ways that didn't make clear they ''were'' science fiction elements, so looked at from the perspective of the series it was a breach of genre conventions.

* ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'' deals with fantasy tropes, but one (widely disliked) episode has him battle a manticore that introduces the rather sci-fi concept of parallel dimensions. Of course, plenty of mythologies around the world, including the British ones ''Merlin'' is a derivative of, include the concept of 'other worlds' so sci-fi hardly has the monopoly on this. It's merely the way 'other worlds' are introduced that would slot the concept into a sci-fi or fantasy.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy has fought robots several times, with a robot decoy of Buffy being significant in the sixth season premiere, despite the show being virtually entirely focused on magic and demons and the like. ''Series/{{Angel}}'' has as well, though less frequently and in a less important role. WordOfGod is that they're supposed to represent MagicPoweredPseudoscience enabled by the warped physics of the Hellmouth and aren't really technology.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy has fought robots several times, with a robot decoy of Buffy being significant in the sixth season premiere, despite the show being virtually entirely focused on magic and demons and the like. Series/{{Angel}} has as well, though less frequently and in a less important role. WordOfGod is that they're supposed to represent MagicPoweredPseudoscience enabled by the warped physics of the Hellmouth and aren't really technology.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Buffy has fought robots several times, including one becoming a major part of the sixth season, despite the show being virtually entirely focused on magic and demons and the like. Series/{{Angel}} has as well, though less frequently and in a less important role. WordOfGod is that they're supposed to represent MagicPoweredPseudoscience and aren't really technology.

* A Halloween special of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' has Eric, in typical Eric fashion, convinced that Jack's new girlfriend is a witch. As it turns out, [[SkepticismFailure she is a witch]], and the episode builds to the attempted ritual sacrifice of Jack and Shawn. Then Eric hooks up with [[Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch Sabrina]], who turns Shawn into a toad. (Another episode featured Sabrina, as part of a crossover, but all she did was set off FormulaBreakingEpisode -- in the 1940's -- with no other supernatural elements.)

* The ''Series/BabylonFive'' follow-up "The Lost Tales" introduces a demon into what had until then been a fairly hard sci-fi universe. The fans were not pleased.

* ''Series/DiagnosisMurder'' was a light-hearted murder mystery programme which involved a lot of {{Contrived Coincidence}}s but nothing actually unbelievable. Except that one episode where the murderer was an honest-to-gods ''vampire''. Who died when she telekinetically flew herself into a chair leg. And was never spoken of again.

* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' established that various ReligionIsMagic powers and EnlightenmentSuperpowers existed in it's world almost immediately, but for the most part treated them like other sci-fi treats psychic powers so they don't usually stand out too much. The main exceptions are the episodes where the crew goes up against the evil wizard Maldis, where it suddenly turns into a straight-out fantasy story. Maldis deliberately using a gothic aesthetic in-universe doesn't help.

* ''Literature/TheOdyssey'' is not technically a supernatural story. Aside from the unfalsifiable secret movements of various gods, all of the monster-fighting and sorcery takes place within Odysseus's narration; the main text is only telling you what the man ''said'' happened to him. Only the battle with the suitors at the end definitely happens, and that part of the story is merely unlikely, not impossible.
** Except, of course, the part at the end where Athena literally descends from the heavens to protect Odysseus from the disgruntled families of the dead suitors, the {{Trope Maker|s}} for DeusExMachina.

* Many of the ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' series (read: everything but ''Anime/TurnAGundam'' and ''[[Anime/MobileFighterGGundam G Gundam]]'') go out of their way to portray everything as realistically as possible, down to giving a justification for apparent SquareCubeLaw violations. They also features psychics and ghosts.

* The final Franchise/DocSavage novel ''Up From Earth's Center'' has Doc clashing with someone who might have a demon and visiting somewhere that might have been Hell.

* The "silly clowns" option in ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryII'', a game that takes place in a middle-eastern fantasy setting. Granted, these games basically run on AnachronismStew combined with an overabundance of cheesy gags, but this takes it UpToEleven with sight gags like a golfer in the middle of the desert.

A violation of GenreConsistency. May be caused by AchievementsInIgnorance or PowerBornOfMadness. May also be the result of {{Filler}} or other {{Padding}}. A character who can consistently do this is InexplicablyAwesome. See also: ArbitrarySkepticism, MagicRealism, SkepticismFailure, ThisIsReality, NewRulesAsThePlotDemands, OutOfGenreExperience. Contrast MagicAIsMagicA, MinovskyPhysics.

* In the book ''The Great Detectives'', Walter Gibson wrote an article of reminiscence on his work on Radio/TheShadow, and he noted that some stories approached or crossed into science fiction, while other Shadow stories stood as conventional crime thrillers.

* A Halloween special of ''Series/BoyMeetsWorld'' has Eric, in typical Eric fashion, convinced that Jack's new girlfriend is a witch. As it turns out, [[SkepticismFailure she is a witch]], and the episode builds to the attempted ritual sacrifice of Jack and Shawn. Then Eric hooks up with [[Series/SabrinaTheTeenageWitch Sabrina]], who turns Shawn into a toad. (Another episode featured Sabrina, as part of a crossover, but all she did was set off SomethingCompletelyDifferent -- in the 1940's -- with no other supernatural elements.)

A violation of GenreConsistency. May be caused by AchievementsInIgnorance or PowerBornOfMadness. May also be the result of {{Filler}} or other {{Padding}}. A character who can consistently do this is InexplicablyAwesome. See also: ArbitrarySkepticism, MagicRealism, SkepticismFailure, SomethingCompletelyDifferent, ThisIsReality, NewRulesAsThePlotDemands, OutOfGenreExperience. Contrast MagicAIsMagicA, MinovskyPhysics.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' has several of these, usually breaking the [[SlidingScale/MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard-end of the science-fiction]] DuringTheWar setting from certain series (like ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'') that forms the main backdrop of each story.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' has several of these, usually breaking the [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard-end of the science-fiction]] DuringTheWar setting from certain series (like ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'') that forms the main backdrop of each story.

* ''Film/JamesBond'' movie ''Film/LiveAndLetDie''
** The death scene for the main villain; Bond wrestles him into a pool of sharks but, before either of them get eviscerated by them, he pulls out a compressed gas pellet and sticks it into the villain's mouth. This has the cartoonish effect of causing him to literally ''inflate like a blimp and float up towards the ceiling'', getting bigger until he eventually bursts. Making things even more cartoonish is that he pops exactly like a balloon, with no blood and just rubbery shreds left over. It was around this time in the movie series where things started to get more campy and ludicrous.
** The apparently functional Voodoo prescience and a [[TheDragon Dragon]] who [[spoiler:''actually comes back from the dead'' like the deity he's named for/impersonating/possibly ''is'']].

* TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}} campaigns can very easily come across this way, due to the extent of the FantasyKitchenSink being somewhat hidden at first. On the surface, at least, the setting of Golarion seems like pretty straightforward Tolkeinian High Fantasy - elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards, gods, demons, all present and correct. The technology level by default doesn't ever exceed muskets and cannon. There's teleportation and interdimensional travel but it's always portrayed in MagiBabble that squares it with the expected parameters of a High Fantasy setting. So it can be a little jarring the first time you find out that Golarion is ''also'' home to some alien lifeforms both organic and robotic that rode in on a crashing spaceship, or that some of the setting's "demigods" are actually very powerful artificial intelligences, or that one of the planets in Golarion's solar system is canonically a [[ThatsNoMoon dormant space station]], or that the planet Earth implicitly exists in the same universe and (thanks to the Public Domain) [[CosmicHorrorReveal actual literal Cthulhu]] is currently asleep beneath its oceans while BabaYaga conquered a Golorian country for the lols.

A moment within a show that doesn't work within [[{{Consistency}} the conventions of the genre]]. For instance, a [[Series/HappyDays UFO abduction in a]] DomCom, ''[[Anime/HeavyMetalLGaim or the sudden appearance of magical elves]]'' in a RealRobotGenre series.

* ''Series/{{Benson}}'' was generally a perfectly straightforward sitcom, but it had a few episodes like this, like the time the mansion staff acquires a robot, the one where Benson and the Governor have a Close Encounter with a U.F.O., and the Halloween episode where Benson ends up challenging Death to a game of Trivial Pursuit to save the lives of a busload of children. Plus there was the [[AllJustADream dream sequence]] episode where Benson and Krauss are the only two humans left on Earth.* The "Leap of Faith" episode of

''Series/BlueBloods'' has both the identity of the murderer and an important bit of evidence revealed through the daughter of the VictimOfTheWeek getting messages from {{God}} in an otherwise realistic CopShow.

* ''Series/TheMagician'' was a show a MagicianDetective where all of the trickery was achieved by sleight of hand. But "The Illusion of the Fatal Arrow" features a woman with genuine psychic abilities: the only example of anything genuinely paranormal in the whole series.[[note]]The episode was made in the early 70s when parapsychology was an emerging field of huge interest in popular science[[/note]]