How to load a different theme for categories?

I need to load a completely different theme for my categories. My search came up with switch_theme function but it changes the theme permanently while I only need the theme change only occur on my category pages.

Then I found this.

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add_filter( 'template', 'my_change_theme' );
add_filter( 'option_template', 'my_change_theme' );
add_filter( 'option_stylesheet', 'my_change_theme' );

function my_change_theme($theme)
{
    if ( is_category() )
        $theme = 'theme_for_cats';

    return $theme;
}

The problem with this one is, it only loads the correct stylesheet. The markup stays the same as my default theme.
Any help is appreciated.

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  1. Ok, after some consideration and tinkering I could get it to work.
    The reason it wasn’t working was because the needed procedures for loading a template kick in long before the the parser gets to functions.php of the theme. So to overcome this I had to bring the code into the plugins’ section.
    By creating a plugin the needed filters are called in time therefore the theme gets changed correctly.