Best mystery TV mistakes of all time

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Psych picture

Ghosts - S3-E1

Character mistake: When Gus goes to check the source of the creepy phone call, he finds Shawn who immediately ends the call before saying anything. Later in the episode, Haversham says he heard Shawn say "Gus?" before ending the call.

Bhelkweit

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CSI: NY picture CSI: NY mistake picture

Communication Breakdown - S5-E19

Character mistake: When Mac, Stella, and Danny are trying to determine where the fired bullet entered the train car, none of them are wearing rubber gloves. But even though they're not handling any evidence, they're still processing a crime scene. (00:05:00)

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

Suggested correction: Theoretically correct, but it can be argued that the only evidence present is the bullet (which has DNA and prints burnt off when fired) and the body (which can only be handled by the MEs) gloves are not required.

Andy Benham

What utter rubbish. No CSI would enter a crime scene without first putting on latex gloves - it is a carved-in-stone rule.

Exactly. Since Mac, Stella and Danny were processing a crime scene, they would need to wear gloves because without them, they would have contaminated a crime scene by not only getting their fingerprints over everything but, if one of them got a cut or scrape, their DNA would also be thrown into the mix and any defense attorney can call them out on their carelessness and have any evidence thrown out.

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Death in Paradise picture

Episode #2.7 - S2-E7

Continuity mistake: When Fidel and Dwayne arrive at the place where Camille and Richard are hiding for the hurricane, they can open the doors without a problem, whereas Camille and Richard had taken great care of locking the doors from the inside.

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Lost picture Lost mistake picture Video

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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Fringe picture

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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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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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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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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Roswell picture

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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Lupin picture

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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JAG (1995)

JAG picture

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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Lie to Me picture

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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