Best drama TV character mistakes of all time

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Doctor Who picture

100,000 BC - S1-E1

Character mistake: When Ian is trying to escape from the TARDIS in episode 1, he says, "He closed the door from over there, I saw him." It was in fact Susan who closed the door.

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Star Trek: Voyager picture

Gravity - S5-E13

Character mistake: Captain Janeway states the temporal differential ratio is .4744 seconds per minute (meaning for every minute on the surface, only .4744 seconds pass on Voyager). Tuvok calculates that 30 minutes on Voyager would be 2 days 11 hours and 47 seconds. However, at that ratio, 30 minutes would be 2 days 15 hours 14 minutes and 15.9 seconds. Later Tom (who was on the surface) says the last two months for them was only 2 days for B'Elanna (who was on Voyager). But with the temporal differential, 2 months on the surface would be less than 12 hours on Voyager. 2 days on Voyager would be almost 253 days (almost 8.5 months) on the surface.

Bishop73

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Scorpion picture

Extinction - S4-E1

Character mistake: Happy determines that the nitrogen hydroxide ate through the drum because it was "steel alloy," in contrast with Walter's requirement that it be "pure steel." These terms are inaccurate, and would not be used by technical experts like Happy and Walter. Every steel is an alloy, combining at a minimum iron and carbon; steel with other alloying agents is called "alloy steel," not "steel alloy." Because steel doesn't refer to one specific substance, "pure steel" could never be used to specify a material for a given application.

DavidK93

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Rosemary & Thyme picture

The Cup of Silence - S3-E1

Character mistake: When Angus is found dead, he left a word, "murder", in steam on the mirror. Daisy cleaned off the word before anybody, except Laura, could see it. Later, Daisy said that Laura was annoyed with her because she had wiped the words, plural, off the mirror. But it was only one word.

kh1616

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Emergency! picture

Frequency - S3-E1

Character mistake: Days after Drew's death (Roy and Johnny had two days off after Drew's death), during the meeting that Brackett has with the four paramedic units, one of 59's guys asks, "What do we do when we have this overload situation on the same frequency? Two squads, like 51 and us today?" The situation with the frequency did not happen "today" as he said, it happened at least three days prior.

Super Grover

More Emergency! character mistakes
Walker, Texas Ranger picture

In Harm's Way: Part 2 - S8-E1

Character mistake: Trivette hands the man in yellow a bullet recovered from the plane Walker and Alex were traveling on, which was shot down by an assassin flying a P-51 Mustang. This man, and later Trivette, mistakenly refer to the round as a "50mm," when in reality, Mustangs were equipped with M2 Browning .50 Caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns. (00:30:25)

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The Mentalist picture

Green Thumb - S6-E10

Character mistake: When Kim is trying to convince Lisbon to help the FBI on their case, she says Jane stopped the ten-year reign of a mass murderer. Red John was a serial killer, which, by the FBI's definition, is a criminal behavior distinctly different from mass murder; he may have had a large number of victims, but he killed them either one or a couple at a time, with a cooling-off period in between, not all at once.

Cubs Fan

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Luther picture

Episode #1.3 - S1-E3

Character mistake: Luther and Ripley pretend they have not been on the boat and did not find the victim's body as they do not have a search warrant and do not want to compromise the case. However, under English law a police officer may legally enter any premises without a warrant in order to save life, prevent injury or protect property. Since they have a reasonable belief that the victim is being held prisoner on the boat and her life is in danger (as far as they know at that time she is still alive), they don't need a warrant. As experienced police officers, they are bound to know this.

Necrothesp

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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles picture

Pilot - S1-E1

Character mistake: In the first scene with Cameron after she walks away from John next to the lockers, there's a poster on a wall to the left. It contains the word "guidance" misspelled as "guidence".

THGhost

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Foyle's War picture

Broken Souls - S6-E2

Character mistake: At the very end of the episode, a chess board is set up wrong, the initial position must have the white queen on the white square (d1) and the black queen on the black (in this case red) square (d8). They set up all the other pieces correctly except the kings and queens should be reversed.

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Madam Secretary picture

Invasive Species - S2-E13

Character mistake: When Henry is speaking to the detective involved in investigating his father's death, the detective says that based upon evidence found at the house he requested a toxicology screen, which showed that his father died of a barbiturate overdose. He continues to explain that he found an empty bottle of hydrocodone in the bathroom trash can. Hydrocodone is an opiate, not a barbiturate. (00:07:35)

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Once Upon a Time picture

Dreamy - S1-E14

Character mistake: In the evening, Emma states that Kathryn Nolan has been missing for 24 hours, meaning that this episode takes place the day after Kathryn disappeared. When Emma investigates Kathryn's car, David tells Emma that he last spoke to Kathryn "yesterday afternoon" (and stresses that he is telling the truth), and that he hasn't spoken to her since he ended their relationship. However, "What Happened to Frederick" establishes that David broke up with Kathryn the day before she tried to leave town and disappeared, because when Kathryn apologized to Regina, Regina referred to the events surrounding the break-up as "what happened yesterday." Emma checks Kathryn's phone records and finds out that Kathryn talked to David on the phone the day she disappeared, but David could not have referred to that conversation, since "Red-Handed" and "Heart of Darkness" both establish that he doesn't remember the phone call because of a memory blackout. Making matters even more complicated is that when Sidney shows up with the phone records, Emma specifically says to him that David told her that he DIDN'T speak to Kathryn that day, which, in fact, he said he did. (00:12:45 - 00:26:45)

Kylantha

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True Blood picture

New World In My View - S2-E11

Character mistake: When Bill mentions to Sophie-Anne that drinking the maenad's blood poisoned him, she says that vampires can only feed off human blood. However, across the show, we've seen vampires drink from fairies, werewolves and even the blood of other vampires, like Lilith's blood. (00:05:50)

Kylantha

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Tru Calling picture

Brother's Keeper - S1-E3

Character mistake: At the end of the episode, after Sarah has been tricked into revealing her plan and is rather obviously going to go to jail, Tru tells her that she "should have taken half," meaning that she should have settled for half of Andrew's money in a divorce instead of trying to get all of it by having him murdered. But Tru seems to be forgetting that Sarah has been trying to divorce Andrew all along, and it's Andrew who has stood in the way of that. Sarah would evidently have been perfectly happy with half, but Andrew prevented it from even being on the table for her, so Tru's comment doesn't make any sense.

DavidK93

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CSI: Miami picture

Bunk - S1-E13

Character mistake: Horatio writes the symbols for sulfuric acid, H2SO4, on a clear board. Both numbers should be subscripts but he writes the 4 as a coefficient (which precedes the name of the acid but he writes it after), suggesting a lack of basic chemistry knowledge.

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