Sci-Fi Shocks you Never Saw Coming

[Terralthra]

Hobbes turning out to be a traitor in Wing Commander. Likewise, Talia Winters in B5.

Fuck Hobbes as the traitor. That ruined the entire storyline with him and was idiotic. I was MUCH more moved and surprised instead by Spirit's death in WC2.

Did you see the deleted video of the message Hobbes leaves in his locker for Blair? It makes the twist storyline slightly less stupid.

[Skylon]

"No...I am your father" is pretty damn high on my list.

The death of Optimus Prime (although if I'd seen the commercials I'd have seen it coming).

The destruction of the Enterprise-nil (again, this was more due to when I saw it...when I watched ST 3 my experience with Trek had been ST 2 and a couple TOS and TNG episodes, I know now paramount spoiled this in the fucking trailer).

BSG had a bunch - "One year later" was one of the greatest collections of "what the fuck?!" reactions I've ever had - I'd also rank Adama dropping Galactica out of the fucking sky in "Exodus" pt 2 up there as the most bat-shit move I never saw coming.

B5 - "Chrysalis" - Everything changes, and it was something I'd never seen on televised sci-fi. Garibaldi is shot, the President dies, we suddenly have actual sympathy for G'Kar, B5 had a ton of shocks in store, but this had a slew that I'll always remember, and utterly convinced me I had to keep watching this show.

[lordofchange13]

The way the Creighton clone uses the first wormhole weapon, was good outside the box thinking.

[Ryag Han]

The nBSG "surprises" didn't. They were foreshadowed so incompetently, I could always tell in advance. It's pretty boring when the writers literally always (i.e. a 100% of the time) go for the "cheap drama" option. Of course that guy waiting on the abandoned station is a cylon and is rescued at the end of the episode. Of course Boomer is a cylon and shoots the Captain at the end of the episode. Of course the reporter is a cylon and all the other cylons watch her report at the end of that episode. Of course the cylons find New Caprica at the end of the episode. And OF FUCKING COURSE Kara Thrace comes back, how could anyone doubt that, ever?
Wow, what an overhyped yawn-fest that show was.

of course you probably saw spoilers before the episode!

[Ryag Han]

Farscape. The entire arc of the Two Crightons. You're trained from SF tropes that such a problem will be resolved by the end of the episode, but... it isn't. And when it is resolved... wow.

then there's "My Three Crichtons"

instead of making the clones disposable, like a curtain series that starts with "star" did plenty of times, their showed as individuals who deserve to live just as much as the original. Even Futuro would deserve to live. he would have been an awesome villain!

[mr friendly guy]

By the time I got to see some of these shows, I had already read the spoilers. However

The death of Wash in Serenity caught me by surprise.

Luke, I am your father. At that stage I must have been like 6 or 7 and the first thing I thought was, wow that sucks. Not only did the hero lose and get his arm chopped off, but he is somehow related to the villain. Of course now I realise it was actually a nice twist.

[cosmicalstorm]

The end of Light of Other Days when they go time travel-sightseeing back through the geologic ages of Earth is beautiful. (They cant change anything, only look)

[Sinewmire]

Knights of the Old Republic. It was obvious Revan was alive, but I always assumed that he would return having licked his wounds at the head of an even bigger army of evil, and he would be the real Big Bad.

The actual twist totally floored me when it was revealed, literally felt like the rug had been pulled from under my feet.

[paladin]

The last episode of Blake's Seven. The good guys don't always win in Sci-Fi.

[Dave]

When Dee committed suicide in nBSG. It was just so sudden and unexpected you barely had time to think what was going on. I was watching it on Hulu in my room, and my roommate heard me go "Holy Shit!" and turned around to see what was going on. Then he laughed when I showed him the scene.

We have a sick sense of humor in my fraternity.

[The Yosemite Bear]

that Xenomorphs (Alien series) back off when cats get pissy, just how come they don't chomp kitteh?

are they afraid hellboy will show up?

[keen320]

The arrival of the GTVA Colossus in Freespace 2.

I was wondering how I'm possibly supposed to fight off a destroyer in a fighter, when suddenly this ridiculously big ship jumps in. My first thought was "wasn't I hosed enough already!?!?" My second was "Wait, that's a friendly!?!?" Well that answers my first question! And the briefing they give on it in the next mission was just awesome.

Same game: The arrival of the SJ Sathanas.Spoiler

And, after that one is destroyed, the discovery that there is another one. And another. Then eleven. Then 80!

Also from Freespace 2,the final mission. Spoiler

You are tasked to defend the last convoy fleeing Capella before the navy collapses the jump nodes to thwart the Shivans. Wave after wave of bombers comes. Then, 11 minutes into the mission, you get a message: The Shivan's have destabilized the star, it's going nova! You have 50 seconds to jump out of the system. I failed, and got killed. Instead of the usual "game over, try again" style of message I would expect, it goes to a cut-scene of the debriefing of your squadron, with the admiral telling them how you died heroically sacrificial yourself to get the civilians out!

[Tsyroc]

Pilot dying in Captain Power. A Satruday morning kid's show that was supposed to be selling expensive toys that interacted with the tv show and they killed off one of the main characters.

The Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes.

[JediToren]

A lot of deaths were pretty surprising.

The sudden and ignominious end of the Fed in the pilot episode of Firefly.
Wash's death in Serenity and Dee's suicide in nBSG were both totally shocking and unexpected. The phrase "had the wind knocked out of me" comes to mind. Shocking and tragic.
Cavil's suicide in the nBSG finale was a surprise.
The death of Janet Frasier in SG-1 was pretty shocking. I knew it wasn't going to be O'Neill, but I didn't expect her death to be so sudden.
The ending of Se7en.
Spoiler

The sudden and violent death of Kevin Pollack's character. The kid who escaped, rifle in hand, and gets blown away by the cop. The trumpets at the end. Lots of WTF moments in that film.

[ZOmegaZ]

Earth: Final Conflict. Zo'or vaporizing Boone.

Of course, it comes out of nowhere because it wasn't part of the original script, was added in post-production at executive direction, and in fact destroys the entire thrust of the show to that point. I never saw it coming because I assumed the show to be run by competent storytellers and not stupid suits. But hey, it still counts.

[Patrick Degan]

The court-martial of General Lysis in Star Blazers. I had gotten used to the villains in any animated show —and a lot of "adult" SF shows— always getting their plans blown up, only for them to return the very next episode having suffered no consequences as a result. In the Quest For Iscandar season, Lysis had trapped the Argo between the planet Balan and it's artificial sun, dropping it down on the Earth battleship faster than it could possibly get out of the way, to either force it within range of the ground-based missile batteries or to actually crush the ship. When Lysis' aide Volgar goes over his head, prompting a call from Leader Desslok ordering Lysis to stop the sun before their base is destroyed, the Argo gains enough time to aim and charge up the wave-motion gun. Fragments of the satellite from the blast end up raining down on the Gamilon base, destroying it. Next episode opened with Lysis being tried for the loss of the base and its personnel, being found guilty and sentenced to death. Desslok pardoned Lysis for one last attempt to defeat the Star Force, but I was impressed at the time that the writers went to the trouble of showing a villain character not simply getting off scot-free for one of his fuckups.

[takemeout_totheblack]

The death of Spoiler

Siegfried Kircheis

from Legend of the Galactic Heroes totally caught me off guard at how brutal it was. I mean, I didn't start the series off chronologically so I had an idea of what happened to this guy. But when it did happen and how it happened, especially after how big a deal this guy was to the series up until that point, it really got to me.

And that wasn't the end of it, not even close. Character after character after character fell before the mighty sword of Tanaka 'Kill 'Em All' Yoshiki. Some died gloriously, some died fittingly, but most just died realistically and without fanfare.

But the one that actually made me tear up, like full on sob'n'sniffle inelegant baby-blubbering, was the soul-crushingly ignominious death of Spoiler

Admiral Yang 'The Magician' Wen-Li. Hero of democracy, brilliant strategist, undefeated on the field of combat, alcoholic, single parent, and all around nice guy second MAIN CHARACTER of the series.

.
Dishonorably tagged by fire by some nameless fanatical git in a cowardly sneak attack.
Bled out while sluggishly applying a tourniquet to his hemorrhaging femoral artery.
Slumped over.
In a hallway.
Dead.
Alone.

Body was cold by the time reinforcements arrived.
Dang, I just bummed myself out

[Thanas]

The sheer drop in quality from Season 2, Episode 11 to Season 2, Episode 12 in Andromeda. Never before have I seen such an instant deflation and collapse. It almost was as if somebody had chased the head writer out of town with pitchforks and ultimately replaced him with a talentless hack...oh wait.

[ZOmegaZ]

^That.

[Nuts!]

Andrew Ryan: "A man chooses, a slave obeys. OBEY!"

Some things don't add up on the lead-in to Ryan's holdout, and then there's the "Would you kindly" revelation room beforehand. We see parts of the plot coming together - and then there's THAT SCENE, which i think blew everyone's expectations out of the water.

[CaptainChewbacca]

In Doctor Who, when we found out what the drums in the Master's head actually were...

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think that goes under the "shock" definition of "oh God, really?

[Shroom Man 777]

It counts as a double whammy in both shock and pure, unadulterated, existential horrer.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I (shudder) agree with Shroom - I had to purge that godawful episode with whiskey.

I suppose under "wtf" moments I can put the last section of 2001 - that was soooo weird.

[Solauren]

Then end of a certain move about damn Dirty apes.
It has a Mr. Heston screaming about fools blowing it all up....