Misused (Alt names crowner 22 November 2021): Something Completely Different

Something Completely Different is a trope about episodes or installments in a series that breaks the series norms in some way. It has a healthy list of subtropes, though I'll get back to that later since there's some I find questionable. However, the image features the trope namer and doesn't actually illustrate the trope concept, and while a lot of the wicks in the Something Completely Different Wick Check were used correctly, others were about any random thing that might've happened, from weird minigames to weird characters or settings.

The results of the wick check are as follows:

• Correct: 17/50, or 34%
• Subtrope: 6/50, or 12%
• Franchise-based: 4/50, or 8%
• Other misuse: 21/50, or 42%
• ZCE: 2/50, or 4%

I separated "Franchise based" from other examples because I wasn't sure if those sort of examples qualified or not. As for the subtropes, most of that usage was A Day in the Limelight. The misuse folder is the biggest one, and as I said, the usage ranges from "something weird happened in this scene" to "this is a weird turn of events for the characters" to "what a weird character". Another type of misuse I saw was for examples that outright admitted the shift wasn't a rare or unexpected occurrance.

Now, before I start coming up with solutions, I want to take a look at the subtrope list itself. Most of it's okay, but then you have things like Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, Playing Against Type, and Oddball in the Series that seem either completely out of place, or just a bit weird. BLAM especially, since it's a YMMV trope about a single moment within a work, which I'm pretty sure is misuse of the concept.

With that out of the way, how can this trope be fixed? Well... I feel like the title is at least partially responsible. As much as I love Monty Python, it's simply not a clear enough name for the definition, and the broadness of it leads to a lot of decay. Something as simple as slapping "Episode" at the end might work wonders, turning it into Something Completely Different Episode. A drier but likely more clear idea is Unusual Situation Episode. I also want to clarify whether or not this is something that can happen on a more meta scale, and to remove the misused subtropes from the list. My other idea is to do the opposite and expand this to cover any weird, out-of-place thing in a story. I'm not as sold on that idea, but it'd be less work.