Dark Reprise / Live-Action TV

• A sinister cello version of Jenna's Turkish pop song "Muffin Top" plays during 30 Rock episodes when she or Tracy are up to something.
• Austin, from Austin & Ally sings a slow acoustic version of the upbeat title song in Albums & Auditions. The lyrics are all about how Austin can't do what he does without Ally. The sad situation of Ally leaving the group to go to New York makes it a Dark Reprise.
• Babylon 5: Early in season 1, we hear G'Kar singing a merry Gilbert and Sullivan-inspired song comparing the acts of fishing and flirting while preparing his dinner. Fast forward to season 4, and G'Kar is trapped with his Arch-Enemy Londo Mollari in a burning elevator. G'Kar begins to softly sing again, but wit new lyrics, this time comparing Londo to the freshly caught fish.
• Bates Motel: In season 2, Norman and Norma sing "Mr. Sandman" as an audition for a community theatre musical. In season 4's "Forever," Nan Vernon's Softer and Slower Cover of the song plays as Norman turns up a broken furnace and starts closing air vents so that he and Norma will die of carbon monoxide poisoning.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • "Under Your Spell". In the first version, an upbeat love song, Tara uses the title phrase metaphorically; later Tara discovers she is literally under a spell to prevent her breaking up with Willow, and the Dark Reprise uses the phrase literally. The second version is actually a double version of this, seeing as it's a duet with an (even) Darker Reprise of Giles' earlier "Standing".
  • In "Walk Through the Fire", Tara reprises Buffy's lines from "If We're Together": "We can't we face / If we're together?"
• Cobra Kai: S2E10 begins with the original version of "Cruel Summer" playing, and ends with Kari Kimmel's slow, somber version of the same song.
• In the Cold Case episode "Daniela", the titular Daniela and her boyfriend Chris have sex to the tune of "Please Don't Go" by KC and the Sunshine Band. They are later caught by Chris' father and Chris is forced to renounce her for being transgender. He hears "Please Don't Go" again at prom and it convinces him to run back to Daniela's apartment. The song ebruptly ends when Daniela shoots herself.
• Community
  • In "Paradigms of Human Memory", there is a montage of Annie and Jeff being secretly romantic set to "Gravity" by Sara Bareilles. Jeff retorts that the same can be applied to Pierce and Abed. It then shows the same montage of the two set to the same song. Troy, at least, finds it gross.
  • The episode where Annie accidentally breaks Abed's The Dark Knight DVD, Troy walks in on her while he is humming "Daybreak". After telling Annie to confess, Troy walks away while humming "Daybreak" again, but this time crying while doing so.
• Doctor Who:
  • "Last of the Time Lords": At various points remixed versions of "All the Strange, Strange Creatures" appear, with added instrumentation, in order to evoke a more desperate, partially tribal feel.
  • Series 3's "This is Gallifrey" gets this more than once:
    • We hear a quieter, sadder version play when the Doctor talks about Gallifrey in "The Doctor's Daughter".
    • The music that plays as we see the ruined Gallifrey in "The End of Time" is a jaded version.
  • From the same episode, we have a reprise of "Song for Ten", which appears very briefly towards the end.
  • The music in the final scene of "The Pandorica Opens" is a dark reprise of Amy's theme.
  • The Eleventh Doctor's secondary theme, "The Mad Man With a Box", is given a dark reprisal towards the end of "The Big Bang", entitled "The Sad Man With a Box".
• A sad rendition of Sybil and Branson's love theme "Emancipation" plays after she died in Downton Abbey.
• Entertainment Tonight uses a Lonely Piano Piece version of their theme whenever a celebrity dies.
• The background music during the final scene of the Firefly episode "Jaynestown" is a sad, subdued, instrumental version of the earlier "Ballad of Jayne".
• In the Fringe episode "Brown Betty", the story version of Walter is introduced amongst the cheerful sound of corpses singing The Candyman. Later, he sings it to himself as his son abandons him and he is left to die alone.
• Game of Thrones uses this trope several times:
  • The first appearance of King Robert is heralded by a grand song called "The King's Arrival". The theme is then played as "You Win or You Die" at the climax of the eponymous episode. Then in the second season premiere, another more dark version of the theme, "The Throne Is Mine", plays when guardsmen hunt down and systematically kill Robert's bastard children throughout the capital. Inverted in the same piece when it transitions into "Black of Hair", a more triumphant rendition of the Baratheon theme, when Gendry escapes the purge. Then it's given an even darker and creepier reprise in Season 3 as Littlefinger's theme "Chaos Is a Ladder".
  • "The House of the Undying", played during Daenerys' Bad Future vision in the House of the Undying sequence near the end of "Valar Morghulis" is a grimmer rendition of "Finale", the track played over the reveal of the dragons at the end of the first season, mixed with elements of "The Wall".
  • Theon's theme, "What Is Dead May Never Die", first heard when he returns to the Iron Islands, gets a twisted and dissonant reprise in "A Man Without Honor" to hint at his deteriorating mental state. This is taken further in Season 3 when it sped up and set to a drum beat to reflect Theon's panic during his flight and later corrupted into "Reek" when Ramsay tortures Theon into accepting his new name.
    • "Chaos is a Ladder" itself receives a Dark Reprise, an eerie and lonely five notes when Littlefinger finally lies dead in a puddle of blood, executed by the Starks for his crimes against them.
  • In the final episode of the second season, "Valar Morghulis", a very grim, foreboding version of the series' main theme called "Three Blasts" is played when an army of dead led by the White Walkers approaches the Fist of the First Men. In the same episode, a mournful version of the main theme is played on a sorrowful violin as the Stark kids, Hodor and Osha survey the burnt wreck of Winterfell.
  • In a season 3 episode, the Brotherhood without Banners sing "The Bear and the Maiden Fair". In the end it is reprised as a heavy metal riff after Jaime gets his hand cut off.
  • The National's "The Rains of Castamere" during the end credits of "Blackwater" acts as this for a far more cheery rendition performed by Bronn earlier in the episode. Then in "The Rains of Castamere", the eponymous music is played during the Red Wedding, were Robb and his bannermen are killed, and again when Ned Starks sword has been reforged into two swords. Finally it is played following the death of Joffrey and upon Tywin Lannisters death at the hands of Tyrion, signifying the beginning of the end of the Lannisters. In a bit of irony Tywin is very much the reason how the music came to be.
    • Later done again in the show's penultimate episode, "The Bells". After Cersei and Jaime are crushed beneath the falling rubble of the collapsing Red Keep, Serj Tankian provides the song's final reprise, which is also the most bombastic yet tragic as it signifies the near-death of the House. For extra irony, the manner of their deaths mirrors the houses mocked in the song. The pair are trapped under ground like House Reyne, buried by their collapsing castle like House Tarbeck, and killed as the city is being sacked, much like Elia Martell and her two children during Robert's Rebellion were at Tywin's orders.
  • The sixth season finale opens with "Light of the Seven", a lovely piano piece that slowly adds the cello and organ along with vocalizations. As the piece goes on, Cersei and Loras' trial by the Faith begins. As Lancel spots the wildfire, though, and Margaery begins to put two and two together, things speed up musically, quickly turning south along with the action. As the situation becomes more tense, the organ starts playing the main theme of the show in a frantic and alarming manner. And then, when the music cuts off, the wildfire ignites, destroying the set.
• In Season 4 of Glee, Blaine sings a stripped-down version of Teenage Dream to his boyfriend Kurt before admitting that he cheated on him. The usual upbeat and happy version song is the first one Blaine ever sang to him back in Season 2.
• In The BBC adaptation of Gormenghast, Lady Fuschia sings a childish (and rather stupid) rhyme to announce herself in the first episode ('I am Fuschia, I am me...') and in the final episode, Steerpike sings a seriously twisted version gloating about his utter madness and the fact that he has mudered several members of Fuchsia's family, including her two aunts, whose corpses he is dancing around at the time. And it's all downhill from there...
• The theme for the documentary series Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, detailing historic child sex offences against Jimmy Savile, is a darker version of the theme for Jim'll Fix It, the show he was most associated with.
• In Flemish series Kabouter Plop by Studio 100, the show's theme sometimes plays in a sober tone whenever a sad moment occurs between the characters.
• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Double has the energetic, electric guitar heavy Image Song for Double's Cyclone forms, "Cyclone Effect". In the penultimate episode 48, a slower, somber acoustic version plays as Shotaro closes the Double Driver, causing Philip to fade from existence.
• The opening theme of Loki (2021), "TVA", receives an intense and ominous arrangement for the end credits of the first season's final episode, which is a reflection on the state of the TVA after He Who Remains dies and Kang takes over in that episode.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power introduces Halbrand as a Mysterious Stranger that Galadriel meets in the middle of the sea. First hint that he is from the Southlands, comes from the hardanger fiddle performing same instrumental as the Southlands theme. His theme is melancholic and rustic, but gets a twisted and ominous arrangement in the final episode of Season 1, right before acknowledging he is Sauron.
• The episode preceding Lost's fourth season finale introduces the show's home theme as a happy, sentimental motif. The episode's final moment's transform it into a song of doom.
• In the Series 4 finale of Merlin, a lovely piece of music plays over Gwen's coronation. Come the finale, the same melody returns in the scene when Arthur dies. Talk about Mood Whiplash.
• The Mickey Mouse Club: Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company.../M-I-C (...you real soon!)/K-E-Y (Why? because we like you!)/M-O-U-S-E...
• NCIS does this in several episodes with their theme song, both with 'darker' versions as well as several sad versions. Interestingly, they often only change the speed of the song.
  • "The Stories We Leave Behind," the episode where Ducky dies (reflecting the passing of his actor, David McCallum), uses a piano arrangement of the theme song,
• Power: The season 6 mid-season finale and finale, "No One Can Stop Me" and "Exactly How We Planned", play a sad version sung by Jacob Banks of the opening theme, "Big Rich Town", over the ending scenes of Ghost falling after being shot and of Tasha being booked into jail.
• Power Rangers:
  • Episodes of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers usually end with a brief, chipper instrumental reprise of "Go, Go, Power Rangers" before the credits. However, a darker, slower and uncompleted reprise closes darker endings such as the earlier episodes of arrivals the evil Green Ranger and Lord Zedd and after the Command Center is blown up at the end of third season.
  • In Power Rangers Wild Force, the standard music for the combination of the Wild Force Megazord begins with a jungle drumbeat, symbolic of the show's theme. When Zen-Aku combines the Predazord for the first time on screen, it's personal theme begins with an off-key version of the Wild Force Megazord's theme.
• In Robin Hood, when Isabella first shows up, she's accompanied by a very dark, off-key remix of Marian's theme, indicating that her betrayal was planned from the start.
• John's theme in Sherlock is shifted into a minor key for the music that plays when he is mourning Sherlock.
• In Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Musical Episode "Subspace Rhapsody", we have "I'm The X", a slower, downbeat, straight-line version of the song before it "I'm Ready". While "I'm Ready" is about Nurse Chapel taking up a three-month fellowship even if it means dumping Spock, "I'm The X" is Spock realizing that he let his emotions get the better of him on the offchance he had met someone with similar likes, only to be dumped so easily, leading to him hardening his heart and returning to his more logical leanings.
• A variant from Stranger Things: the already ominous theme used for the Upside Down gets a slower and even more threatening reprise 51 seconds into "Rats". The latter plays during a scene in the third season's first episode where the Mind Flayer enacts its plan to create a flesh proxy in the real world by forcing several dozen rats to explode into viscera.
• The Story of Tracy Beaker featured a slow, sombre piano rendition of the theme song that would play over more poignant moments, typically involving Tracy and her absent mother. Results in a bit of Lyrical Dissonance given the upbeat, positive nature of the lyrics.
• In each episode of The Sweeney the opening theme are upbeat and heroic, while the closing theme is the same themes but slower and in a minor key, reflecting Regan's incomplete success and his regrets for the compromises necessary to achieve even that.
• In The Temptations, "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" is first heard when David is listening it by himself and soaking in how good he sounds. It gets played again when he crashes a Temptations concert and he steals the microphone and sings it himself. He also begs to be let back in the group.
• In episode seven of The Terror, when a demented Hickey brutally stabs Lieutenant Irving to death, a twisted version of the song that Irving was singing ('Hampstead is the Place to Ruralize') at the Carnivale in the previous episode can be heard.
• More of an even darker reprise of already dark music: In Torchwood: Children of Earth "Day One", "Countdown to Destruction" plays over the imminent destruction of the Hub and a very passionate kiss between Jack and Ianto. Come "Day Four", the same music plays when Jack and Ianto confront the 456, which doesn't end well. The real gut punch? The very same snippet that played over the kiss in Day One plays as Ianto collapses in Day Four.
• The promo and first trailer for The Twilight Zone (2019) use a dark, ominous remix of the theme for the classic series.
• In Walking with Beasts, when the Neanderthals attack the mammoths, the music that plays is a mix of the ones played during the mammoth migration and Megaloceros hunt but darker and with chanting and drums.
• The Wire:
  • In the penultimate season 2 episode, a jaunty folk tune plays when Frank decides to stick it to the Greek. It plays again when they meet to discuss getting Frank's son Ziggy out of prison except the Greek's FBI mole found out Frank talked to the cops so he's walking to his death.
  • The season 1 version of the theme song plays over the series finale montage, indicating that nothing has changed in Baltimore.
• One episode of The Wonder Years opens with Kevin extolling the virtues of his sweetheart Winnie as the Beach Boys' classic "God Only Knows" plays. The song is used again at the end of the episode when Winnie dumps Kevin.
• Wynonna Earp: The theme song, "Tell That Devil", is usually fast-paced in order to reflect the action-packed nature of the series. However, in the episode "Colder Weather" it's much slower and more somber, reflecting the In-Universe mood following the death of Dolls in the previous episode.
  • A similarly somber version of the theme tune plays over one of the final scenes of the Season 3 finale as Doc ascends to Eden to rescue Waverly.