Best family TV plot holes of all time

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iCarly picture

IHave My Principals - S3-E5

Plot hole: Near the end, Sam locks Mr. Howard and Ms. Briggs in a closet. Sam and Gibby then put a heavy desk right against the door and leave them stuck inside. Then later the two teachers are seen frantically controlling the students. How did they escape? They were inside a closet with the door locked on the outside and with a heavy desk against it.

Kaiser Strien

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Suggested correction: It's clear that another teacher or teachers heard the announcement or heard them yelling and let them out... What we should be asking is why no other teachers helped them control to the students.

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The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air picture

Bang the Drum, Ashley - S1-E2

Plot hole: Ashley says she is 9; later in that season, in "Just Infatuation," Phil says she is almost 12. Will is 17 for the first two seasons, and 18 in season three. Nicky Banks grows from baby to preschooler between seasons four and five (though this was humorously addressed).

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All Grown Up picture

Thief Encounter - S1-E7

Plot hole: It's revealed at the end of the episode that the reason Tommie was sleep walking was because he was so nervous about the 5th grade test. However, he was sleep walking before news about it was given (ie: The beginning of the episode).

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Suggested correction: This is more of a question than a mistake. (To be fair, I don't think questions were a feature yet back when this was posted.) No, he didn't. He only noticed the fire pit (and the colosseum) when he was inside the ant farm. It most likely just wasn't visible to him from the outside, or it was too small for him to see it.

zenee

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Phil of the Future picture

Show generally

Plot hole: In the episode "Where's the Wizard?", when Pim gets the Wizard from Lil' Danny, she holds it in her hand. When Lil' Danny steals it, he takes it out of Pim's backpack, meaning it must be Pim's Wizard. But when Phil points it out, she says it's hers. This could be a character mistake, but if it was Phil's Wizard, they would not be able to track the one Hackett had, because inputting the signal of Phil's Wizard would do nothing.

Brad

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Lilo & Stitch: The Series picture

Baby-Fier - S1-E33

Plot hole: When Nani, Jumba, Pleakley and Stitch are turned into babies, Pleakley says he did oops in his pants, but it is well known that Pleakly doesn't wear pants, so why does he say that when it's not true?

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Power Rangers in Space picture

Show generally

Plot hole: For the past 5 series, Bulk and Skull have been in every episode. They've seen villains from other galaxies (Lord Zedd, Rita Repulsa, The Machine Empire, and Divatox) who have all sent monsters to Angel Grove and threatened Bulk and Skull on countless occasions. They've even been turned into monkeys and made invisible by space creatures. Why do they feel the need to spend Series 6 seeing if alien life exists? Surely 5 series worth of aliens is enough proof?

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Suggested correction: Bulk and Skull are very dim witted and would like to find alien life so they can get famous, not realising everyone knows alien life exists.

Ssiscool

They are very dim-witted but surely not that dim-witted.

Suggested correction: They do not spend the series seeing if alien life exists. Their first scene in the season is them spotting Astronema's ship through a telescope and yelling UFO. They know. It's another one of their kooky schemes to get rich by being the first to discover these aliens and getting rich off it. (they were out looking for an undiscovered comet) They even get Professor Phenomena who's already been doing this before they were. It always felt like a play on Peter Parker getting rich off selling photos of Spiderman. But, dumber. I mean come on they tried catching a rabbit with carrots because they thought it was an alien. Stupid idea yes. Plot hole. No. It tracks with their characters.

DetectiveGadget85

Suggested correction: Think about it They have no reason to believe that they are aliens from space. They look human or could have been created by humans. It could have been a form of magic. Plus we never know what the news or the government is telling the public to normalize these situations. They don't actually know where they came from.

DetectiveGadget85

This is only a theory. Theories never solve mistakes.

No one in Angel Grove, believes them when they say they've seen aliens. It's been a running gag since Zeo. Go back and look at King For a Day Part II, after they got back from being kidnapped. Even the professor is viewed as a kook for believing in the existence of aliens.

DetectiveGadget85

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The Wonder Years picture

How I'm Spending My Summer Vacation - S2-E17

Plot hole: When Kevin is upset about Paul leaving for summer and is just lounging around the house, he asks why they can't go on vacation. His mom says "Maybe next Summer." In the very next episode, which takes place in the same Summer, they are going on a "traditional" Summer vacation.

Knever

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Gilmore Girls picture

The Reigning Lorelai - S4-E16

Plot hole: When Emily is dialing a number for Manny Martelli, to make arrangements for the funeral, she only dials two digits. She just got the number from someone else, so there's no way it was speed-dial.

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The Brady Bunch picture

Career Fever - S4-E9

Plot hole: Peter thinks he has a fatal disease. The parents realise two pages stuck together and he went from page 95 to 98 mistakenly. However, Mike first read about the actual fatal disease info on page 97, and then Carol read about what Peter actually had on page 96 (poison ivy). If Peter read only 95 and 98, there would be no way of Peter to know his disease was fatal since that was printed on page 97.

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Laverne & Shirley picture

The Robbery - S4-E4

Plot hole: Towards the end, Jake (Shirley's boyfriend), hangs the girls on a coat rack by the hoods of their coats. They try a few comical ways of trying to escape, when they could have simply unbuttoned their coats and slip away.

Cincydog

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Quantum Leap picture

Another Mother - September 30, 1981 - S2-E13

Plot hole: Sam wallops both kidnappers and rescues the son. They then leave the two child molesters unconscious beside their van. No one calls the police or has them arrested, so they're free to kidnap another kid. Sam doesn't leap until after an epilogue in which the loose ends are supposed to be resolved - but this question is left unanswered. It's not excused by a "just because we didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't" defense. The viewers shouldn't be left with a dangling plot hole, and one line could have cured this one.

Jean G

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Recess picture

The Trial - S1-E16

Plot hole: Whenever Gretchin calls Mikey up to the stand to explain what he saw, he says that he had followed Spinelli and Randall to the wooden fence, where he Saw Randall on his knees in front of Spinelli, begging for forgiveness, then Mikey began running to the other side to stop Spinelli from pummeling Randall with the "rock" but didn't make it in time. We then later find out that Spinelli had actually rescued Ms. Finster's cat out of a tree and Randall hit himself with the rock out of spite. But it is impossible that Spinelli could have given up on hurting Randall, climbed up a tree, rescued a cat, climbed down, handed the cat back to Ms. Finster, gotten praise from Ms. Finster, then have Randall attempt to pick up a big rock, then get a smaller one and hit himself with it in under 3 seconds (the duration of how long Mikey ran before he heard Randall's scream).

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Transformers picture

Desertion of the Dinobots (1) - S2-E19

Plot hole: Perceptor discovers that the reason for their malfunctioning is because their Cybertonium has deteriorated after millions of years of being exposed to Earth's atmosphere. The key word here being 'millions'. This explains why the original Transformers who crash landed on Earth (4 million years ago) are affected, but newer characters like Perceptor, Powerglide, Hoist, etc. are affected despite the fact that they have only been on Earth recently.

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Power Rangers Wild Force picture

Forever Red - S1-E34

Plot hole: Tommy states that he and the other Zeo Rangers destroyed the Machine Empire's leaders and ultimately destroyed the Machine Empire except for the Generals who escaped. This is not true - Lord Zedd and Rita destroyed the Machine Empire leaders at the end of series 4, and the Space Rangers destroyed them again in Countdown to Destruction in series 6. The Zeo Rangers never destroyed the Machine Empire.

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Suggested correction: How would Tommy know that? He didn't watch the show or know the ins and outs of what happened in space. This is what he believed based on his experiences on Earth. Everything you described is factually correct, but Tommy did not witness this. So, to his knowledge, he destroyed the Machine Empire.

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