Best drama TV plot holes of all time

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Strike Back picture

Project Dawn #10 - S2-E10

Plot hole: After Grant finishes her video confession, Latif puts the video recorder in his cargo pant pocket. A few scenes later, he's blown up without ever having taken the video camera out of his pocket. He was at the epicenter of the explosion and he and his clothes were very much on fire, which should have completely destroyed the video camera and its recording.

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Skins picture

Pure - S7-E3

Plot hole: In Part 1 look closely when Cassie is showing Maddie the 'Oblivion' website that contain pictures of her. Some of the pictures are those we actually see being taken of her in Part 2 (the following episode). How could they be on the website before they've even been taken?

Liam D

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Dragon Tales picture

Show generally

Plot hole: In each episode, Emmy, and Max travel to dragon land (often for a long time) without their parents ever knowing. This makes no sense. Their parents would notice sooner, or later that Max, and Emmy always go in, and out of the house, or that it's always quiet in Emmy, and Max's playroom. You'd think Emmy, and Max's parents would get suspicious, and would question their children accordingly.

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Pride and Prejudice picture

Show generally

Plot hole: In Pemberley, Caroline Bingley refers to an utterance of Darcy ("I should as soon call her mother a wit") that he made after coming home to Netherfield after their first ball in Meryton. Falsely she says he made this expression "after they had been dining at Netherfield". This is a direct quotation from the novel and is not coherent with the film plot in which this utterance is made after the first ball.

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Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman picture

To Have and to Hold - S6-E20

Plot hole: In the ending scene, Mike has a probable concussion from her fall, so Sully keeps her awake to prevent her slipping into a coma. They talk all night, reminiscing as Mike experiences periodic pain spasms. Their talk ends with discussion over them having another child, and then they instantly engage in an intimate moment, which would be impossible, considering her condition, and without further checkup from another doctor. Sometime later she is suddenly feeling 'cured', and they return home.

oprlvr33

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The Magicians picture

The Secret Sea - S4-E12

Plot hole: In the poison room, Zelda is magically knocked unconscious where Everett explains to her, among other things, that there is a secret reservoir of magic. Plover then mentions the reservoir after Zelda awakens, as if he somehow heard the conversation in her head.

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1883 picture

The Fangs of Freedom - S1-E5

Plot hole: When the bandits attack the pioneer's wagons they are chased on horseback by the Captain, Jack and others for quite a distance until Ennis is killed in the confrontation with one of the bandits. In the following scenes Elsa is mourning over his body but her mother and others from the wagon train stroll up and the wagons are in the background-all this after a fairly long chase.

bnemirow

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The Flash picture

Revenge of the Rogues - S1-E10

Plot hole: During the fight at sundown, Cold gets a hit on Flash and he goes down. Eddie takes a shield and goes to help. But Flash was in the middle of the street with no obstacles around, and it's implausible that Eddie could have gotten to him without Cold or Heat seeing him.

Knever

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Black Sails picture

I. - S1-E1

Plot hole: Why, of all people on board, would the cook know of a specific entry in the captain's log, exactly where to look for it, and that it contained very valuable information?

Friso94

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GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka picture

Show generally

Plot hole: During the episode "Superstition", Onizuka thinks he has cancer because the magnetic pain-pads he was wearing created strange blobs in the X-Ray he has taken. However, given the fact that the X-Ray was so strange, doctors would have given him a complete physical, and noticed the pads much sooner. Here, they literally just assume he has tumors, and fail to ever take notice of the pads. Simply impossible, given the gravity of the situation. (Obviously, this is to pay off at the very end of the episode.)

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Secret Invasion picture

Season 1 generally

Plot hole: The Skrull base is inside an abandoned nuclear power plant with enough radioactivity to force any human (like, say, Nick Fury) to constantly pop iodine pills to fight the symptoms of a poisoning that would kill them in less than half an hour. Despite that, Skrulls also detain prisoners, for years in some cases, in rudimentary shackles without any sort of shield or protection against the radiation.

Sammo

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

Suggested correction: Iodine pills don't fight the symptoms of radiation poisoning; they prevent the body from absorbing radioactive iodine. It does not protect from exposure to radiation; it won't save you from it. Secondly, it's all an act by Gi'Ah posing as Fury anyway. Thirdly, they are in the reactor control room where Gravik says the radiation is higher. The prisoners are in a low radiation room, which could be extra shielded from radiation. It could also be that the prisoners are fed iodine to block radioactive iodine.

lionhead

We can make up if we want that there's a special, super-secret anti-radiation serum and/or super-effective shielding, helping humans even during an exposure that lasts years (a decade in the case of Rhodey!), but there has to be something in the actual visuals that remotely hints at it. It's hard to headcanon that the dingy area of the plant where they are racked together, strapped to bed nets behind tarps, can be "low radiation", or that they are given anything to counter it. In particular, in the ending, the rescued people leisurely walk around the plant with zero radiation protection, even casually in the open yard where "Fury's" Geiger counter was going mad earlier. And the radiation was not something induced by the Skrulls that just ended when the baddie died. Not only is there no techno-babble justification (one could argue it's simply a pedantic detail not unlike the lack of hair growth or muscle atrophy), there's a direct flagrant contradiction in how the environment of the location - which is the only reason why they picked that site as a base - is deadly to humans only to a dramatic degree only when it's convenient.

Sammo

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Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt picture

Kimmy Makes Waffles! - S1-E13

Plot hole: The plot hinges on Kimmy finding evidence against Pastor Wayne inside of the bunker, which she ends up doing. But there's absolutely no way the police didn't thoroughly comb the bunker for evidence after discovering it. In fact, it looks like it's barely been touched in the several months that have passed. Yes, the show has a sort-of whimsical "cartoon" logic... But even in that way, it makes no sense whatsoever.

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The Day of the Jackal picture

Episode #1.5 - S1-E5

Plot hole: The Jackel visits Norman's hideout where they meticulously craft disassembled rifle parts in a walking boot. The Jackel takes the rifle out to test with nary a sign of the boot. He is nearly captured, escapes, and flees the country while Norman is captured and killed. But the Jackel arrives in Estonia wearing that one-of-a-kind handcrafted boot.

bnemirow

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The Sandman picture

A Hope in Hell - S1-E4

Plot hole: The powerful 'amulet of protection' makes the bullets strike the shooters instead of John. Clearly it works not just against magic and other ethereal threats, but also against physical attacks. So why does he almost get knocked over by a car? True, he isn't seriously injured, but he was thrown to the ground. The amulet should have pulverised that car or bounced it at least two blocks away.

Spiny Norman

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Vega$ picture

The Lido Girls - S2-E16

Plot hole: Michelle and the girls are winning at Baccarat every time due to a system where they know the cards in advance by seeing through them. However, all betting in that game is done before cards start coming out of the dealer's card chute onto the table. So even with their cheating system, they realistically couldn't always win, as the cards are not already face down on the table.

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The Wild Wild West picture

The Night of the Deadly Blossom - S2-E25

Plot hole: There are two rockets to be launched. The right rocket launches. It is important for the plot for the remaining rocket to explode without being launched. Without explanation, the left rocket just falls off its ramp, lands on the floor and shortly explodes. (00:46:10)

11291929

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Royal Pains picture

Home Sick - S8-E6

Plot hole: Evan talks his and Paige's way into the sterile area where the embryo implantation is taking place. The med technician stresses how sterile it must be, and yet Evan and Paige are shown with neither masks nor gloves.

bnemirow

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Liar picture

Episode #2.6 - S2-E6

Plot hole: Laura is spotted at an airport where it is assumed she goes to Edinburgh. Although she mentioned later on she broke her bail by leaving the 30-mile radius by her bail conditions. This wouldn't have been possible as part of her bail was to surrender her passport.

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MacGyver picture

Seeds + Permafrost + Feather - S3-E17

Plot hole: The team is trying to recreate the movements of a murdered seed vault employee by using his phone's geolocation attributes (compass, accelerometer, altimeter, etc). They are trying to backtrack from the place they found the murdered employee to where he first surprised his killer. They backtrack using the data from the employee's phone, and there is another set of data shown on the computer. But they only have one phone's data to work with. Where did the data presumably from the killer's phone come from? (00:12:50)

toroscan

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