Best mystery TV plot holes of all time

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Murder, She Wrote picture

Sticks & Stones - S2-E10

Plot hole: When Beverly is killed the killer shuts off the main power switch which would have turned all the lights off in the house, not just those in the bathroom. (01:31:00)

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Roswell picture

Pilot - S1-E1

Plot hole: In the lab when Liz makes the slides of her cheek cells and the cells from Max's pencil, the first time she doesn't add stain and the second time she does. If she's going to be a molecular biologist she really ought to learn to apply techniques consistently. (00:07:30)

Phoenix

More Roswell plot holes
American Horror Story picture

Season 1 generally

Plot hole: It's been established that if you die on the property, you remain as a ghost for all of eternity. However, in Season 8, Moira's bones are retrieved and buried in a cemetery so that her ghost can escape and join her mother. However not all the ghost's bones are buried on the property, we know for sure that the Black Dahlia was not buried on the property and it's not likely Tate, Vivian, Ben or some of the others are buried on the property as well so they should not be tied to the house.

ctown28

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

Suggested correction: Tate's victims from the school shooting are ghosts who can move between different locations. There's nothing to suggest that the ghost of the Black Dahlia isn't merely choosing to be in the Murder House rather than being tied to it. The same goes for Vivien and Ben, since Violet is going to stay in the house, so might they.

Tate's victims cannot move around freely to different locations. The only time that they can is on Halloween, when all ghosts can move around freely but then return to their death location at the stroke of midnight. "OP" is a valid mistake.

ctown28

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Haven picture

Over My Head - S3-E4

Plot hole: Daphne was able to hurt Duke because his name appears on her cell when he called, but names only show up on a cell phone if the person's number and name are programed into the phone, and Duke has already said he doesn't know her.

brianjr0412

More Haven plot holes
The Twilight Zone picture

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street - S1-E22

Plot hole: The street sign in the beginning is all wrong: it faces the camera rather than the street where the story takes place. In a typical American city, street signs are almost always placed in the direction of the street they are indicating, so drivers on the other street in the intersection know what they are turning onto or passing. In other words, the story is not set on Maple Street! Maple Street is the intersecting street at the end of the road the story is set on.

mirtom

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Night Gallery picture

The Messiah on Mott Street - S2-E38

Plot hole: No one in Goldman's house finds it at all strange that a mailman arrives at the door with a letter after midnight on Christmas Eve. Nor, a short time later, does the doctor or anyone else passing by at this very odd hour wonder why the same mailman is collecting mail from a street box at dawn on Christmas Day.

Jean G

More Night Gallery plot holes
More Magnum, P.I. plot holes
Dexter picture

Are You...? - S7-E1

Plot hole: It's out of character and against his code for Dexter to kill Viktor at the airport. Airports have security cameras everywhere (you can see one on the ceiling when he is wheeling Viktor into the unclaimed baggage storage), and using the unclaimed baggage storage as the kill room is equally unwise, because any airport employee could walk in at anytime and catch him red-handed. Dexter was caught murdering Travis Marshall by Deb just hours before, so if anything, he should be even more cautious.

Phaneron

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The Avengers picture

The Winged Avenger - S5-E6

Plot hole: The bad guy somehow knows what is going to happen (via the sketches) even though the events haven't happened yet, like knowing Mrs Peel was going to show up at Pool's mansion in that catsuit and hat, and that the scenes were going to play out like the sketches.

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Law & Order: Special Victims Unit picture

Her Negotiation - S14-E24

Plot hole: Although William Lewis burns his fingertips in an attempt to avoid identification, the Special Victims Unit could have identified him early on by examining the remaining unburned area of Lewis' hands, and in good police procedure still record the newly scarred fingerprints, as these new scars actually make his fingerprints more unique. His scarred fingerprints would still be at Alice's apartment crime scene, and during the trial at the end of the episode the prosecution would still have a strong argument for placing Lewis at Alice's apartment, even if the DNA evidence is thrown out because of alleged cross contamination.

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Relic Hunter picture

Buddha's Bowl - S1-E1

Plot hole: Sydney is able to surmise from the artwork (we could also say from the writing, but her rival is one step ahead of her for 2/3 of the episode and it is established that he does not know the language) the precise location of the koi in Lumbini. The map is 150 years old, but there's no way even with a big stretch of imagination to buy that they both'd be able to pinpoint with such ease and certainty its location in the basement of a random building in the bustling market center of a town, that surely changed plenty during the past century and that does not bear any special landmark.

Sammo

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The Event picture

Show generally

Plot hole: Episode 1: All passengers on cruise ships have a passenger card with their name and cabin number imprinted. They are not just identical key cards like in hotels.

Jacob La Cour

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The Prisoner picture

The Chimes of Big Ben - S1-E2

Plot hole: When Nadia had been held captive in The Village, how did she get word to her accomplice to be ready at the exact time, in the exact location, and with a packing crate ready, and a whole series of transports arranged? Even if Nadia was in on the ruse of conning Number 6, wouldn't he be suspicious?

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The Rockford Files picture

The Countess - S1-E4

Plot hole: Rockford and Carl Brego are punching and kicking each other on the beach. Someone shoots him down with a rifle. The INSTANT Rockford goes to check out if he's still breathing, two people randomly happen to walk on him popping over from behind a rock as they were having a super casual and amused chat, but see Rockford by the shirtless brute and make a horrified face. Later in the episode the two identify Rockford and say that it looked like the two were fighting. Their facial expressions at the time don't make sense as depicted. Even if we assume that they did not see anything at all and they played it up/filled the blanks in their mind later, the two are not deaf and yet they were not perturbed or curious in the slightest after the loud bang of a gunshot. The way the scene was shot, the only thing tipping them off about anything was seeing Rockford over the corpse (which had barely a small dot of blood visible at the time and would hardly tip anyone off at first sight). (00:18:45)

Sammo

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And Then There Were None picture

Episode #1.3 - S1-E3

Plot hole: The killer is meant to create the perfect crime, but the angle of the shot would make obvious to any forensics examiner that it's a suicide. There is practically no possibility for a person supposedly positioned across a long dining table to kill someone else with a shot under the chin. (00:55:50)

Sammo

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Nowhere Man picture

Doppelganger - S1-E19

Plot hole: Tom discovers Claire's body in the wardrobe of his motel room. He leaves the room, and within a minute returns to the room, accompanied by the police. The body has vanished from the wardrobe, but given how little time Tom was away from the room, it is impossible for someone to have moved it, particularly given the weight of a corpse.

swordfish

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Lupin the 3rd picture

The Man They Called a Magician - S1-E2

Plot hole: Lupin was knocked out by Pycal when he shot him with a gun at point-blank. On the other hand, the 'shield' he used was strong enough to not even budge when Jigen's gun and several machine-gun shots would hit, and sustained the impact of an anti-tank rocket, so the dampening powers of the chemical are pretty inconsistent. It's also completely impossible that it works as shown, unless it also coats the mouth, the nostrils, the eyes.

Sammo

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Project Blue Book picture

The Green Fireballs - S1-E6

Plot hole: Captain Quinn interrogates a Sergeant and presumably he is let go. Yet for no reason and against all probabilities, Captain Quinn keeps the Sergeant's wallet, which among other things contains the Sergeant's ID card, not to mention other personal effects. How is he going to get on the base without an ID? There is no legal basis for the Captain to keep it. Why keep it? So he could rifle through it and discover a rent receipt later in the show? This is a poor way to further the plot. (00:16:40 - 00:17:30)

toroscan

More Project Blue Book plot holes
Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns picture

The Hong Kong Kowloon Treasure Murder Case File 2 - S1-E2

Plot hole: An essential part of the plot relies on the fact that thanks to Saki's handheld camera, Kindaichi can examine Ran's arse dragon and therefore investigate even in her absence. But what set the plot in motion was the fact that Ran appeared in a professional modelling photoshoot displaying it. Stupidity of the girl aside, that means that the culprit never needed the girl, having HQ shots of the tattoo at their disposal. They even work for the company.

Sammo

More Kindaichi Shounen no Jikenbo Returns plot holes

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