Best crime TV mistakes of all time

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Get Smart picture

Mr. Big - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When Max is phoning the Chief to let him know the mission's been accomplished, he takes the oars out of the oarlocks before opening his shoephone. The oars change from being out of the oarlocks in the closeups to still being in the water in the long shots for the rest of the episode. (00:23:50 - 00:24:30)

Captain Defenestrator

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New Tricks picture

God's Waiting Room - S4-E2

Continuity mistake: When Brian and Gerry are chasing Kelly, Kelly's jacket is only zipped up at the bottom at the start of the chase, but when the camera angle changes it is zipped all the way up for the rest of the chase.

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Traffic: The Miniseries picture

Part One - S1-E1

Visible crew/equipment: Towards the beginning, when the Taliban steps on the landmine, you see the DEA agent getting hit with dirt and blood. In the center of the shot, you can see a few drops of blood stick to the camera lens. Incredibly easy to notice, so I'm not sure how this one slipped through.

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The Grid picture

Episode #3 - S1-E3

Audio problem: When Muhammad is meeting with the group of Al-Quaeda leaders in the desert, the movements of his mouth do not match what he is saying in the foreign language.

Steph_Jared

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Batman: The Animated Series picture

Heart of Ice - S1-E3

Other mistake: When Batman is watching the security footage of Victor Fries' accident, at first Fries is addressing the camera directly which follows him and pans according to his movements and Ferris Boyle interrupting him, which would suggest a second person was in the room with a handheld camera. But after Ferris Boyle enters the room and orders Fries' experiment terminated, there are several cuts from various angles in the room suggesting surveillance cameras. The surveillance style footage also often conveniently cuts to the face of whichever person happens to be speaking or will cut to a certain angle in order to put emphasis on the action, all of which would require multiple mounted cameras and purposeful editing by either Boyle or one of his subordinates, which would be completely illogical since they don't want anyone to see the footage in the first place. (00:12:20 - 00:13:55)

Phaneron

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Ray Donovan picture

Snowflake - S2-E9

Continuity mistake: Bunchy is serving burgers. Picks up ketchup in his left hand and mustard in the right. Camera pans from a different angle and he is putting back the mustard and picking up the ketchup that he already had. (00:28:11)

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Happy Valley picture

Episode #1.6 - S1-E6

Continuity mistake: The district commander wears the rank insignia of a chief superintendent up until the final episode, when he suddenly appears with the insignia of the lower rank of superintendent.

Necrothesp

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NCIS: Los Angeles picture NCIS: Los Angeles mistake picture

Talion - S7-E24

Visible crew/equipment: In the rec hall, when Kensi feigns sickness while posing as a cadet the gunman jumps off the stage, and as Kensi bends over the small rectangular bulge of her mic pack can be seen at her back. (00:30:25)

Super Grover

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Matlock picture

The Madam - S5-E3

Factual error: Radio talk show host David Campbell works at "WRQE 480 AM." There is no such frequency. The AM radio dial begins at 530.

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The ABC Murders picture

Episode #1.1 - S1-E1

Factual error: This is set in 1933. When the killer comes back to his lodgings in episode 1, Lily on the stairs is humming "Somewhere over the rainbow", which was written for The Wizard of Oz in 1939. She also happens to wear bright red shoes, which feels like yet another Wizard of Oz reference. Interesting enough, the subtitles say that she is humming a different song, "Night and day" which she openly sings throughout the series and was already a hit in 1932. (00:44:10)

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Kung Fu: The Legend Continues picture

Show generally

Continuity mistake: In an earlier season Caine takes a young Peter to a place in the temple and explains that his mother is buried there. However in the series finale he shows adult Peter a picture that someone took months ago and Caine tells Peter that the woman is his mother and he's going to find her.

Madison Kimura

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Inspector George Gently picture

Gently with the Women - S7-E1

Character mistake: The registration number of Alan Salt's car is HUA222B, but when Rachel is on the phone asking an officer to look up the car's registered owner she gives the registration number as B222HUA.

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Rillington Place picture

Show generally

Factual error: With two exceptions, all the policemen shown in both 1949 and 1953 are wearing the old-fashioned tunics with high, closed collars. The Metropolitan Police adopted the more modern open-necked tunic with collar and tie in 1948, and this is shown worn by the policeman who visits Christie and by the officer who arrests him.

Necrothesp

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The Shield picture

Playing Tight - S3-E1

Visible crew/equipment: Dutch and Claudette are watching an interrogation video of the Margos with Armin Chorekian. Just before the scene changes, the boom mic bobs down into the shot above Armins' head for a split second. (00:14:40)

AngryBird

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The Sweeney picture

In from the Cold - S3-E2

Other mistake: During the hold up when Medhurst is sprung from the police van, the breakdown truck used to pull the doors of the van reverses towards the police van twice after releasing the chains off the doors before driving away, and the camera lights are reflected in the side of the white getaway car.

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

Suggested correction: Not entirely true; although they are rare and may no longer exist now, I've seen traffic lights that followed the red, yellow, green pattern as recently as the mid-1990s.

zendaddy621

Interesting. What state (s) did you see this in? I'm assuming going from red to yellow was to encourage cars to cautiously enter the intersection in case someone was running a red light?

Phaneron

Traffic lights in the UK do this - it's more to give you a second to get ready, in gear, etc., then as soon as the lights turn green you can go. Otherwise you get no warning of when the lights are about to change.

In Illinois; as I said, such traffic lights are rare, but they did exist at least as recently as the time this episode of the series aired, and they may still possibly exist in larger cities such as New York City.

zendaddy621

This traffic light set-up (red to yellow to green) still exists today in the UK. From what I understand, it is to alert the driver that the light will be turning green imminently and to prepare themselves to put their car in gear, as manual cars are still pretty common in Europe. I'd wager this light cycle was phased out of North America due to the abundance of automatic cars today. Could have been different in 1994 though.

critterbonus

It should be noted that traffic lights that go from red to yellow before going green keep the red light illuminated so that both red and yellow are lit up. However, that's not what happens in the scene. I've never seen a traffic light operate the way it's shown. And Massachusetts still has traffic lights that go from red to yellow, however, when red and yellow are lit up together, this allows for pedestrian crossing.

Bishop73

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