Best mystery TV mistakes of all time

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Show generally

Factual error: Calleigh Duquesne frequently wears completely inappropriate clothing throughout the whole series. She often wears blouses that are so low cut that the neckline is below the lower curve of her breasts. No officer of the court in the US would be allowed to dress this way. There is no grey area here, and this is not a character mistake - first time a CSI turned up at work dressed like that, she'd be sent home to change. Second time, she'd be on suspension until she agreed to change her dress standards. Also (and this regularly happens in CSI: NY as well) she is regularly wearing high heels - also a certain no-no for as CSI. Incidentally, male CSIs have equally strict dress standards.

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Deux Ex Machina - S1-E19

Continuity mistake: When Jack speaks to Michael and Jin, as they build the raft, and then when he walks up the beach and inquires about Sawyer's trouble with his head, the backpack that Jack carries on his back is nylon, black/green with white trim. Yet, when Sawyer asks, "Sensitivity to light, that bad?" the backpack is suddenly transformed into solid black leather, of an entirely different style. Then, in following shots it jumps back and forth. (00:16:40)

Super Grover

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Unearthed - S2-E11

Continuity mistake: Charlie, Olivia's former partner and friend in the FBI shows up in this episode during the interview with Mrs. Rusk, but Charlie was killed off by one of the shapeshifters in a previous episode, and the shapeshifter that killed Charlie was himself killed off by Olivia, who in other episodes reflected back on killing him. This episode was supposedly meant to be in season 1 as ep 21 or 22. Unknown why they didn't air it then, and decided to put it in the middle of season 2 (for no apparent reason).

Mark Sweetman

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Castle picture

For Better or Worse - S6-E23

Continuity mistake: At the end of the episode, the Mercedes S class that is burning is not the same car that Castle drove previously in the episode, it's an older model one. Either it's a mistake or has to do something with the plot resolution, decide yourselves...

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Life on Mars picture

Episode 5 - S1-E5

Revealing mistake: When the Capri crashes into the goal net & they go to arrest the suspect you can see sky satellite dishes on the houses in front of them. Satellite TV didn't start in the UK until the 80s.

peter mcgougan

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Homeland picture Homeland mistake picture

The Good Soldier - S1-E6

Factual error: Raceme's girlfriend Morgan is seen in a mugshot taken by Edinburgh Police, Scotland. They are known as Lothian and Borders Police, not as shown "Lothan and Boarders". (00:28:30)

Sinx

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Numb3rs picture

Prime Suspect - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: When Charlie Epps is writing a quadrillion on the whiteboard, the writing alternates between shots. Most noticably when he first writes it down, there is a significant downward tendency of the 000 groups. In the next shot, they are pretty much horizontal. Also the shapes of the commas alter.

Ronnie Bischof

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Pilot - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When Max, Michael, and Isabel are at the taco stand discussing Max's saving of Liz's life, you can see Michael hand Max the bottle of Tabasco the three are sharing, and when the shot switches, Michael again has the bottle of Tabasco. (00:13:15)

MoonFaery

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The Best Policy - S1-E7

Visible crew/equipment: At about 30 minutes into the episode, right after Cal says: "if Jeffrey knows about priox, he's going to jail. But I'm gonna be damn sure before I send him there", you can see a hand in the top right corner of the screen.

catri

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JAG (1995)

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Washington Holiday - S2-E9

Factual error: In the whole episode, Romania is depicted as a monarchy with the king in a position that allows him to make political decisions. However, Romania ceased to be a monarchy in 1947. By the time depicted in the episode (circa 1997), Romania was a republic and its head of state was the president. Members of the ex-royal family did not hold any positions in the Romanian government and were certainly not authorized to represent Romania in international events.

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Chapter 1 - S1-E1

Plot hole: The protagonist gets in the exclusive, multi-millionaire, invites-only auction because the invitation is on a printed letter that he faked. This means that the guards at the entrance don't have a guest list to check, and since nobody knows who this person is, the staff does run a background check on his identity when he makes the first outrageous bid...by looking his name up on Wikipedia. That's mighty low standards of security, especially for an auction that was supposed to be for a selected audience and the most important in France.

Sammo

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