10 TV Episodes That Broke All The Rules
9. Once More, With Feeling - Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Musical episodes are a dime a dozen these days.
Scrubs, The Flash, Community, and more have all had episodes in which characters show off their pipes, but one of the first major programmes to use this concept was Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
In the episode Once More, with Feeling, the gang do battle with a demon that forces people to reveal their secrets through the medium of song. Buffy, Willow, Giles, Xander, Spike and plenty of others get in on the singing, creating a truly memorable and toe-tapping hour of television.
The episode was an absolute nightmare to pull off as the cast had to get extra vocal and dance training in order to pull it off. Series creator Joss Whedon had also never written music before, so this was all a huge risk. Thankfully, it paid off.
To this day, it is one of the most popular and well-received episodes of the show ever. It even used to get shown in theatres where fans could come and sing along!
Once More, with Feeling helped popularise the musical episode to the point where it has now become a trope. However, at the time, it was utterly revolutionary.