Outgrowing the Box
That rare moment when a work suddenly reveals itself to be so much bigger, so much vaster in scope, than you ever imagined it would be. When it abruptly shatters the bounds of what you thought it was, in the best way possible. A common audience reaction is, "Oh my god, they went there. They actually went there!" (Where "they" refers to the writers).
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...there was something unusual about the purple-hued horizon. Instead of the sky and the sea meeting in a straight line—as they ought to and always had before—the juncture between them curved, like the edge of an unimaginably big circle. It was such a strange sight, it took Eragon a half-dozen seconds to understand what he was seeing, and when he did, his scalp tingled and he felt as if the breath had been knocked out of him. "The world is round," he whispered. "The sky is hollow and the world is round."
—Inheritance, page 479
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If you take Crowning Moment of Awesome, but for an entire work (or, if you prefer, its writers) rather than a character, and cross it with Wham! Episode, you get this trope. Similar to Growing the Beard, but more concentrated in time and usually planned in advance. May include Going Cosmic, or the introduction of a Myth Arc into a work where one wasn't expected. It can also take the form of a Genre Shift or Out-of-Genre Experience, as in the page quote. Compare Cerebus Syndrome.
Very much a YMMV trope.
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Literature
- The Inheritance Cycle (page quote): when Eragon & co. are caught in a massive updraft and sent to higher altitudes than anyone in living memory has ever reached, high enough for them to notice the curvature of the earth, and for the sky above them to darken. This is an injection of sci-fi into a formerly strictly fantasy series, although it's not a particularly good example since it goes back to being 100% fantasy after the scene ends.
- ...And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes: Many readers will find themselves thinking, "Wait, what?" when they see the "ACT TWO" heading. And they have no idea what they're in for.
Webcomics
- xkcd has something of a meta-example in #1608 Hoverboard. A stick figure comic that occasionally includes expansive worlds to explore, this one provides you with a tiny collect-the-coins JS game that, once you break out of the box, lets you hoverboard from the peak of a volcano into an Imperial Star Destroyer. Don't forget the console cheat modes!