Painful Transformation / Live-Action TV

Painful Transformations in Live-Action TV series.

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• Just like in the movie, the Ghost Rider transformation in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not at all fun; the person undergoing it often winces in pain as it starts up. Since it involves their entire face burning off, it's easy to see why.
• Being Human:
  • George's werewolf transformation is agony. During the transformation, a werewolf has every organ in his body simultaneously stop: heart attack, kidney failure, liver failure, and so on. Meanwhile his bones are cracking and twisting against each other, and his skin and muscles are being brutally torn apart. He screams at first, until the change hits the throat and vocal chords. Normally a human in pain has defenses, such as hormones that dull pain receptors, but those systems are gone too, leaving absolutely nothing to help with the pain. The second season implies that the body breaking down and rebuilding itself makes the werewolf slightly stronger after each transformation.
    Nina: It looks so painful. What happens to you, what does it feel like?
    George: There aren't words.
  • It's implied that when a person dies, they go to an unknown place where terrifying things happen to them. So when a person comes back as a vampire or ghost, they haven't had the best time.
• Zig-zagged with werewolves in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The pain they go through when transforming varies. When Oz transforms from human to werewolf in season 2, the pain is incapacitating: he doubles over, tries to get away but falls over, followed by restrained moaning. Transforming back, however, doesn't even wake him up. In season 3, he's perfectly quiet during all transformations, while in season 4, the time leading up to nightfall is described as "blood boiling". But Veruca enjoys it. Then in season 8, a group of werewolves is seen screaming and even coughing up blood, while Bay changes without a hitch. Possibly justified when taking into account how much a werewolf wants to transform. Oz was quiet when he was safe and behind bars; Veruca loves being a werewolf; and Bay transformed out of protection. Characters who experience pain, however, always seem to fight it.
• Doctor Who:
  • The regeneration process experienced by Time Lords, if not always physically painful, is an extremely traumatic and draining experience. Typically, just after regenerating the Doctor is weakened, partially amnesiac, and, in a few cases, comatose.
    • The Master's regeneration in "Utopia" shows him screaming throughout the whole process. Extra creepy when his face morphs and the scream pitches up.
    • When the Eleventh Doctor shows up in The Sarah Jane Adventures, Sarah asks him if it hurt the last time he changed. "It always hurts," is his reply.
    • In "Let's Kill Hitler", Mels screams in pain when she regenerates into River Song.
    • In "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", after the Doctor describes regeneration, Grace comments that it sounds painful, to which the Doctor responds that she has no idea.
  • "Human Nature"/"The Family of Blood": When the Doctor becomes (temporarily) human, the process is only seen during a few extremely brief flashbacks — and he's screaming in anguish the entire time.
  • The Doctor's forced aging in "The Sound of Drums" and again in "Last of the Time Lords" certainly sounds painful, judging by the screaming.
  • "Planet of the Ood" has the Karmic Transformation of the Corrupt Corporate Executive. It starts as simple hair loss, and ends in him ripping his own face off to expose his newly transformed self and coughing up part of his brain.
• From the Netflix show Hemlock Grove, Peter Rumancek transforms into his wolf-form twice on the show and each time it's as visceral as it is painful as it looks that the wolf is ripping it's way out of his body. The first time his eyes and teeth are pushed out of their sockets. The second time his wolf head comes out of his human mouth and then he touches the guy in front of him with his hand. That came out of his muzzle. No wonder the guy pukes his guts out at the sight. Interestingly, he implied that the transformation actually isn't painful by comparing it to how you wouldn't feel it if you got hit by a bus.
• Heroes:
  • When Mohinder injects himself with an experimental serum trying to give himself an ability, his ability at first includes super strength and agility. However, he slowly starts to transform into a monster of sorts and there is visible pain and discomfort that accompanies the transformation.
  • Shows up again in season 3 with the Voluntary Shapeshifting ability acquired by Sylar.
• In From the Cold: Jenny's body morphing is very painful, to judge from the cracking and crunching sounds as her skeleton changes, with her voice groaning while in different pitches during all this.
• Lovecraft Country: The transformation potion wearing off is far from pleasant, with the person's original body blooding emerging from their assumed one, which causes a lot of discomfort.
• The Outer Limits (1995):
  • In "The New Breed", the substantial modifications made to his body by the nanobots causes Dr. Andy Groenig severe and near constant pain.
  • In "Afterlife", Stiles undergoes one in the process of his DNA slowly melding with the aliens'. He first throws up continually, then loses his hair, grows claws on his hands, even his skull and brain enlarges.
• Supernatural: Shapeshifters have to go through this every time they switch forms, with teeth falling out, internal things rearranging with many a crunching, squelching sound, and finally having to peel their own skin off. Made more jarring and squicky because the first time we see it, the shapeshifter looks like one of the main characters. Alphas, however, are able to transform without much pain or ceremony.
• The transformation to vampire in True Blood has been described as incredibly painful and horrifying by vampire protagonist Bill, who had vowed never to turn another human into a vampire to ensure that nobody else has to experience what he went through.
• Werewolves get the really bad end of the stick on The Vampire Diaries; it takes over five hours of horrible pain before there's even any visible changes. Though at least that part does get shorter over time.
• Discussed and subverted in Wizards of Waverly Place; when Justin kisses his werewolf girlfriend and finds out that he's now a werewolf because of it, he freaks out expecting this trope to take effect. Fortunately for him, that's not the case.
  Isabella: That's another stereotype. The change is pretty fast and painless.
  Justin: [suddenly a werewolf] Really?

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