Best TV character mistakes of all time

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The A-Team picture

Blood, Sweat, and Cheers - S4-E8

Character mistake: In the scene where Jack is phoning Col. Decker to give him the A-Team's location, the camera zooms to a wanted poster of the three members. The poster lists Faceman as the rank of Captain, instead of Lieutenant.

matt_58

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Law & Order picture

Remand - S6-E10

Character mistake: McCoy asks his witness, an expert geneticist, what the odds are that a DNA sample presented in evidence does not match that of the defendant. He answers "About one in two hundred." That is idiotic. If the DNA samples are identical the chances that the the sample presented in evidence does not come from the defendant is about one in two billion, not one in two hundred! A bright high school senior would know that, never mind an expert geneticist.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: If the odds are 1 in 200, that means the accuracy of the DNA is 99.5%. If the odds are 1 in 2 billion, that means the accuracy of the DNA is 99.9999999995%, which simply isn't true.

Bishop73

In fact as any geneticist (i.e, anyone like me) will tell you the chances of two identical DNA "fingerprints" coming from two different and unrelated individuals are around one in two thousand million. Two billion. In fact the odds are much higher than that but we scientists don't like to make claims that sound unlikely or fantastic. The accuracy of DNA fingerprinting is, as you point out, 99.9999999995%. You correction is wrong and the posting is correct.

Except that's not what happened in the scene or what happens in real life. You simply don't understand what you're arguing. You're not a geneticist.

Bishop73

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The Wire picture

Unto Others - S4-E7

Character mistake: When Cutty quits the truant officer job and walks out of the office, he runs into his old girl from way back. She calls him David instead of Dennis. (00:51:00)

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Peaky Blinders picture

Season 5 generally

Character mistake: Several times Tommy addresses Sir Oswald Mosley as Mr Mosley instead of the correct Sir Oswald. Mosley never corrects him, which given his snobbishness portrayed throughout the series seems highly unlikely.

Necrothesp

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Henry Danger picture

Dream Busters - S1-E19

Character mistake: When Charlotte is going into Henry's dream for the first time, while she is talking, in the background, you see Henry move his head and open his eyes.

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30 Rock picture

Live from Studio 6H - S6-E19

Character mistake: Tina Fey fumbles her line and has to start it again. The original line should have been "How long do you think you're going to get away with this? Hazel or Jenna will know we're missing." Instead the second part of the line is "Henna or Jay; Hazel or Jenna will know we're missing!" (00:04:05)

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Lucifer picture

#TeamLucifer - S1-E12

Character mistake: When trying to decipher what the letters from the dermal implants spell, Lucifer rearranges the letters and says "Hilii Fircus, it means 'children of the goat.'" However, the correct phrase was Filii Hircus, not Hilii Fircus. (00:13:27)

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The Mandalorian picture

Chapter 9: The Marshal - S2-E1

Character mistake: Cobb Vanth says that he's never seen anything but the dragon's head and had no idea about the size of the dragon...but at the beginning of the episode we could see the beast pass through town (conveniently right in the main road without damaging anything else) and its enormous lengthy body was perfectly noticeable. (00:31:20)

Sammo

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Star Trek: Picard picture

Remembrance - S1-E1

Character mistake: Picard and Data are playing poker at the beginning of the episode. Before the actual faces of the players are revealed, we are shown close-ups of their hands as they put down the chips for the bet. When Picard says his first line in the series it's "See", and it is literally true, because in the previous shot, Data put his 5 cards down on the table and face up. (00:00:50)

Sammo

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The Dead Zone picture

Collision - S3-E3

Character mistake: When Johnny is at the hospital, having a vision of his mother, Gene Purdy and Sarah is waiting for news of him following his accident, he states that a vision earlier was related to his accident 'Nine years ago'. Later, when he is in the ambulance on the way to where his accident occurred, he asks the paramedic if it was the same ambulance. The paramedic replies, 'Yeah, I've been driving the same rig for nearly eight years'.

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ER (1994)

ER picture

Lockdown - S8-E22

Character mistake: Carter tells the mother of the smallpox infected children that no one has seen smallpox for 50 years. The episode aired in 2002, WHO didn't start its global eradication of smallpox until late 1950's and the last case was reported in 1978, which is only about 20 years.

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Cheers picture

Ill-Gotten Gaines - S11-E8

Character mistake: Cliff tests Norm's memory by asking him who the bad guy in 'Herbie The Love Bug' was (presumably meaning the first movie, which was just 'The Love Bug, ' no Herbie in the title, and not the TV series that actually had the 'Herbie, the Love Bug' title). Norm answers Keenan Wynn, and is told by Cliff that is correct and that his memory is OK. Wynn was the antagonist in the second movie, 'Herbie Rides Again' (reprising his role from the 'Absent-Minded Professor'). The bad guy in 'The Love Bug' was played by David Tomlinson of 'Mary Poppins' fame.

Vader47000

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Mission: Impossible picture

The Bank - S2-E4

Character mistake: The 'perfect' German postcard Rollin has written is full of mistakes: 1) The 'sie' must have a capital 'S' because it's a personal pronoun; 2) The only sentence stops in the middle and makes no sense; 3) The word 'Besten' has to be written without a capital because it's not a noun; 4) In Germany the house number stands after the street name, not before; 5) The streetname makes no sense. Too many mistakes for a so-called 'perfect' card. (00:04:40)

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Eastenders picture

Show generally

Character mistake: 27/1/15 Max tells his two daughters to get in his car to go to Emma's funeral. Max's car is a Mercedes SLK which is only a two seater, and therefore wouldn't seat three people.

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Superman: The Animated Series picture

Mxyzpixilated - S2-E8

Character mistake: In the third instance where Superman manages to get rid of Mxyzptlk, he uses an article full of typos which spell the latter's name backwards as KLTPZYXM. Among the incorrect words is the word "citrimes", in which Superman has included an I and a T, so the correct word in context with the rest of the text should read "crimes" and thus the errors would spell KL-I-TPZYXM. Since there are no vowels in MXYZPTLK, however, what is the additional I doing here - and why didn't Mxyzptlk bother to mark it as a mistake, either?

Daniel4646

More Superman: The Animated Series character mistakes

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