10 TV Shows That Were Unrecognisable When They Finished
5. Torchwood Became Harder Sci-Fi In Season 3
When Doctor Who came crashing back onto the BBC in 2005, you could hear the overjoyed squealing from all the way in the states, and we wouldn't even care about DW until Matt Smith showed up, so you know that's an accomplishment.
But because we mostly ignored Doctor Who during its reboot's first two eras, we also ignored the excellent spin-off show Torchwood. Like Buffy and Supernatural before it, Torchwood was a case of the week show with a sci-fi twist centering around the ever lovable baby faced bastard himself, Captain Jack Harkness, working with the eponymous organization to fight extra terrestrial threats.
But when season 3 strolled along, the writers decided that they wanted to do things just a bit differently this time around. Namely, they changed the title of the show to Torchwood: Children Of Earth, and began to ground the show just a bit into much harder sci-fi instead of copying DW's wibbly wobbly approach. They told one gigantic story over the entire season, and raked in the accolades as a result. Unfortunately, they couldn't make it work in quite the same way twice in season 4, and the show ended soon after.
But that doesn't change the fact that such a radical shift in tone and story structure did work wonders for them in their latter half.