Apple TV's 2-Part Sci-Fi Detective Series Successfully Switches Genres After 6 Episodes

Published Nov 13, 2026, 2:31 AM EST Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. Although it is not unheard of for TV shows to switch genres midway through their run, Colin Farrell’s sci-fi detective thriller on Apple TV was on another level when it came to this particular trend. There are some TV shows that change their genres midway through their runs because the show’s creators change their vision for the series, and other shows that always intend to unexpectedly switch the style halfway through the story. For example, Seth MacFarlane’s sci-fi comedy The Orville started out as a bawdy, crass parody of Star Trek shows, but eventually became a sincere homage to space operas and began taking its dramatic beats much more seriously as a result. In contrast, ABC’s iconic murder mystery Twin Peaks initially seems like a straightforward mix of small-town soap opera and police procedural, but the show’s creators, Mark Frost and David Lynch, always had trippier intentions for its plot. The Apple TV hit Sugar has a twist so shocking that it is tempting to assume the show’s writers simply got bored with their gritty neo-noir detective story and jumped into an entirely separate genre. However, a re-watch of the show proves that, beneath all of Sugar’s nods to The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and Inherent Vice, the detective mystery always had something stranger up its sleeve. Fair warning, major spoilers for Sugar abound from hereon out. Sugar Switches From A Detective Thriller To A Sci-Fi Show The vaguely off, uncanny tone of Sugar is the reason why it shouldn’t really have been such a massive shock when DWQ Farrell’s taciturn P.I. Sugar turned out to be an alien six episodes in. This twist seems truly deranged, but throughout season 1’s first six outings, Farrell’s titular private investigator continually acts a little strange, a little offbeat, or just a little out of touch with the surrounding reality. Between his outsized love and empathy for animals, the fact that booze seemingly has no effect on him at all, and the studious attention he pays to classic Hollywood movies, Sugar is a weird guy throughout the show’s first six episodes. However, since he isn’t necessarily any stranger than the quirky protagonists of earlier neo-noirs like Under the Silver Lake or The Big Lebowski, these character traits don’t add up to much until he reveals he is really a blue-skinned alien in episode 6’s closing scene. Even though there were hints earlier in the show for those who wanted to find them, Sugar’s twist still marked one of the wildest TV moments in recent small screen history. For viewers who didn’t know the show’s source material, the revelation that From Dusk Til Dawn: The Series is a vampire horror and not a straightforward crime thriller is a similarly jolting shock. Apple TV’s Sugar Twist Is One Of TV’s Wildest Shocks In Years Apple TV The infamous season 1 finale of The Good Place was equally jaw-dropping, proving that Sugar’s shocking genre shift isn’t unprecedented. However, this twist did still cement the Apple TV detective thriller as one of the most interesting and inventive sci-fi shows on the streaming service, which is quite an achievement in itself. In recent years, Apple TV has invested heavily in the genre. Silo, Foundation, Invasion, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Dark Matter, Murderbot, and Severance all prove that Apple TV is clearly angling to become the number one creator of high-quality, high-profile sci-fi shows. In this context, the revelation that their sunny LA noir series was actually an alien sci-fi show in disguise shouldn’t have come as a total shock. Still, a twist is only as good as its execution, and Sugar’s episode 6 genre switch was as astounding as the famous reveal from season 1 of Jonathan Nolan’s Westworld reboot. The fact that Sugar season 2 managed to continue this genre-blending story with panache proves that Apple TV’s detective drama had more than a momentary shock in mind with this revelation. Release Date April 4, 2024 Network Apple TV Showrunner Mark Protosevich, Sam Catlin Directors Fernando Meirelles, Adam Arkin Writers Mark Protosevich, Donald Joh, Sam Catlin, David Rosen Creator(s) Mark Protosevich