Best crime TV plot holes of all time

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Lie to Me picture

Pilot - S1-E1

Plot hole: The pictures James took were developed from his camera into photos even though he was arrested while taking those. How did they get developed? James' father didn't approve and his mother said she had found that stack of photos after the police searched his room. (00:26:30 - 00:30:00)

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Point Pleasant picture

Season 1 generally

Plot hole: In episode 1-7: "Unraveling," Christina and Jesse get on a bus to New Haven, first thing in the morning. Christina left the Kramers's house before breakfast. Then, they ride on the bus all day until getting trapped in a terrible storm in the dark of night. But New Haven, CT, is less than a seven hour bus ride from the Jersey shore, so anything that happened to them on the way there should have been in full daylight.

DavidK93

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Time Trax picture

Show generally

Plot hole: "Showdown": Darien's lost hat and jacket reappear without explanation after Kane finds him wandering in the desert. Also unexplained is how Kane conveniently happens to be leading an extra, unnecessary horse - unnecessary, at least, until he stumbles across the stranded Darien. (00:15:00)

Jean G

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Wanted picture

Rush - S1-E1

Plot hole: At the start, they state that they have 96 criminals to go. They bring up the photos of all 96 wanted felons. They then learn that Machado has been pushed to the top of the list and they bring up his file. You can see his mug shot on the screen, among the list of 96, as they zoom into his file. If he is in jail and has not yet escaped, how can he be in the list of 96?

Rlvlk

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Quincy M.E. picture

Hit and Run at Danny's - S2-E6

Plot hole: There are three mistakes in one scene when Quincy talks to the driver of the hit and run car and he finds seatbelt bruises on the right side of the throat under an arm sling. First mistake: The bruises will hurt a lot and won't heal if they are under a sling. Second mistake: At the beginning, when the driver struggles with the kidnapped lady while driving he has no seat belt on which touches his throat. Third mistake: When you put a seat belt on sitting in the driver seat the belt will surely touch the left sight of your throat - not the right. (00:39:05)

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Spider-Man picture

Sins of the Fathers Chapter 6: Framed - S3-E6

Plot hole: After Peter Parker is framed and arrested for selling government secrets to foreign organizations, he escapes police custody and goes home to retrieve his Spider-Man costume that was simply hanging in his dark room. If he was arrested for selling government secrets then surely the police would have searched his home and found his costume (as well as equipment) in the process. Since the police car was visible in front of his house, it seems very strange that police didn't search his home.

Phaneron

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Beauty & the Beast picture

Beast Within - S1-E6

Plot hole: The mob hitmen are about to enter the Sweeny family's house to kill them when the police van arrives to move them to a witness protection safe house. In the next scene, the bad guys abduct Catherine and try to force her to reveal where the Sweenies have been taken. Why? They could very easily have waited and simply followed the van. (00:36:30)

Jean G

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iZombie picture

Eat, Pray, Liv - S3-E3

Plot hole: When Katty is first discussing the dead girl from the plane crash who had brains in her stomach, she says the girl's flesh indicated she died months before she ever got on the plane. But then later in the episode, Katty says the plane crash girl was at the boat party (massacre) the day before she got on the plane. Everyone at the boat party was alive before dying and turning into a zombie, so the girl's flesh would not indicate she was dead for months since she only died the day before.

Bishop73

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

Suggested correction: Not everyone at the boat party was "alive", there were some zombies there as well, Blaine included, it is entirely possible that she was a zombie before the boat party happened.

ctown28

Which episode(s) mention Blaine and others were zombies before the boat party massacre? Everything in the show makes it seem like it was the combination of tainted Utopium and Max Ranger energy drink that night which caused the zombie outbreak, including Blaine's transformation. And the Fillmore-Graves outbreak was a separate incident that Blaine wasn't a part of.

Bishop73

Yeah, the boat party was ground zero for the outbreak, Blaine and everyone else was human when they got on the boat. Nothing suggests otherwise.

Purple_Girl

When get turned in to a zombie your flesh is dying so her flesh could be dead.

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JAG (1995)

JAG picture

Cowboys and Cossacks - S2-E14

Plot hole: When the radar man of the USS Cayuga describes a radar reading to likely be "One of the Russian cruisers", the commanding officer of the USS decides not to pursue it saying, "We are after bigger fish today - I want the Vasilyev". In the film, the Vasilyev is depicted as a destroyer, which is a smaller and lighter ship than a cruiser. In this context, the cruiser would be a "bigger fish" than the Vasilyev and the CO should pursue it instead if he was after the larger, more dangerous vessels as he seems to declare.

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Sherlock picture

His Last Vow - S3-E4

Plot hole: Sherlock manages to convince Janine to let him into Magnussen's quarters after deceiving her into thinking he is going to propose. Several days later, she is enjoying her "revenge with profits" on Sherlock for his duplicity. Problem: There is no way she could have found out. She was out cold moments after letting Sherlock in, and Sherlock himself was shot by an assailant, which he had misidentified. Only Watson knew Sherlock's true intention, but we know he did not reveal it. The shooter and Magnussen did not know and had no opportunity to tell Janine anyway. (Plus, Magnussen's credibility is too low.) In fact, if I were the director, I wouldn't bother making up a motive for being a "grasping, opportunistic, publicity-hungry, tabloid whore" (film's own quote). Such a person loves "profits", not just "revenge with profits." (00:31:00 - 00:43:00)

FleetCommand

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Richard Diamond, Private Detective picture

A Cup of Black Coffee - S2-E9

Plot hole: Diamond is in a very small town in the middle of rural nowhere, and it's the middle of the night. His car has just been wrecked, driven over a cliff by the bad guy. Yet on the same night, in the cafe at the end, he offers George a ride - for that same night - to New York. (00:25:30)

Jean G

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Batman picture

Enter Batgirl, Exit Penguin - S3-E1

Plot hole: When he abducts Alfred, believing him to be a minister, Penguin suffers a peculiar memory lapse. He's encountered Alfred twice before in previous episodes, even kidnapped him once before (knowing full well that he was Bruce Wayne's butler). Yet here, he fails to recognize Alfred at all. (00:12:30)

Jean G

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Ozark picture

Pick a God and Pray - S4-E9

Plot hole: Ruth enters Darlene's home at night, crossing over the crime scene tape. She proceeds to the barn where she finds all of Darlene's heroin packed up neatly. This is factually impossible. Once the police had secured the crime scene in the house, they would have searched the entire property and would have discovered and seized the heroin at that time. (00:54:38 - 00:56:09)

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Midsomer Murders picture

Show generally

Plot hole: In the Pudding Club episode, when they visit the secret room, all the candles are lit even though no-one is in there.

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Weeds picture

The Godmother - S1-E10

Plot hole: If Andy really did enlist into the Army Reserves and "forgot about it" like he claimed a warrant for his arrest for desertion would have been issued, which the police would have seen when he was arrested for pot possession in the episode "Lude Awakening." After seeing the warrant, the police would have called the Army, and he would have been returned to military control to face desertion charges. He would not have been released and sent a letter a few weeks later simply telling him to report for duty or face military prison; the option to report for duty would have no longer been available when he was gone long enough to get put in deserter status.

AD

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The Adventures of Tintin picture

Tintin and the Picaros: Part 2 - S2-E9

Plot hole: When the helicopter flies over the jungle, Haddock inadvertently walks in view of the helicopter and the pilot of the helicopter notices him, assuming it to be a Picaro. Haddock then trips into the river, but despite being watched by the pilot of the helicopter the entire time, the helicopter pilot doesn't notice him falling into the river and instead assumes he just disappeared. (00:26:20)

Casual Person

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Batwoman picture

Down Down Down - S1-E3

Plot hole: Kate in the Batcave says with absolute certainty "Alice doesn't know that Bruce Wayne is Batman. Whoever stole the gun, knew that Bruce had to have the suit to test it on." Both statements are leaps in logic with no foundation. Alice knows that Kate is Batwoman, and that Bruce's office is her center of operation (she even shines a bat-signal there!). It would be perfectly logical to assume that she made the connection. The testing bit is simply a non-sequitur; plenty of weapons can be made and tested on armor which fits the specifications, real or inferred, of a particular target, without being in possession of the item as a whole. (00:16:00)

Sammo

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Ashes to Ashes picture

Show generally

Plot hole: At the very end of series two, there was a shootout during an armed robbery. WPC Granger somehow had access to a firearm. Surely the fact of her uniform rank would not have allowed this.

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Matlock picture

The Professor - S1-E11

Plot hole: Matlock figures out that The Professor wouldn't have been able to see the security guard from 50 yards without glasses, and that's what tips him off about The Conspiracy: the guard testifying that the man wasn't wearing any. However, when we see the scene happen at the beginning of the episode, the person posing as Prof. Erskine Tate is, in fact, wearing glasses. (00:04:15 - 00:22:15)

Sammo

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