Best sci-fi TV plot holes of all time

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Ben 10 picture

Be Afraid of the Dark (2) - S3-E12

Plot hole: When the Corrodium Beam is shut down, there is a brief scene of the sky clearing at Mount Rushmore. But on the cliff face all four heads are seen, whereas the head of Theodore Roosevelt got crumbled in "Secrets," and it's too far forward to have been carved into the mountain face, in place (and same position) of the old head, yet again.

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Stargate: Atlantis picture

Home - S1-E9

Plot hole: General Hammond is promoted to 3-star general and command of the SGC is given to General O'Neill before the Atlantis gang even left earth. Why is it, that none of them find it the least bit odd that a 2-star Hammond greeted their return instead of O'Neill?

Grumpy Scot

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Suggested correction: The dream-state induced by the aliens had some ability to stop them from questioning their reality. (One of them takes quite a while to realise that a friend they're partying with died years before they left for Atlantis). It's not infallible or entirely consistent, but it would theoretically explain this.

Anson Gordon-Creed

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Blake's 7 picture

Weapon - S2-E3

Plot hole: How very perspicacious of the clone masters to create their duplicate Blakes wearing the exact same outfit that the real Blake happens to have on in this episode, considering they have never seen Blake in person. (00:35:35 - 00:38:35)

Jean G

More Blake's 7 plot holes
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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

More Dexter's Laboratory plot holes
X-Men picture X-Men mistake picture

Slave Island - S1-E7

Plot hole: After Storm's attempt to escape the Genoshan prison is thwarted, she ends up in the ocean right at the shoreline of the beach, where she is captured by a Sentinel. Aside from the fact that it makes no sense for a Sentinel to be hiding in the ocean in the event that a mutant tries to escape the prison, there is absolutely no way that a two-story tall robot could hide in the ocean right by the beach, as the water would be way too shallow. You can even see that the water level only goes up to the Sentinel's ankle area when it is standing upright in the ocean. (00:03:15)

Phaneron

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Suggested correction: Perception. (1) The Sentinel isn't as close as it appears. If it were close, then she would have been caught in its waves as it emerges. Also, she would be looking only at its chest circle. It's several yards away. (2) She washes ashore. She fell from the sky. She couldn't have fallen from that great height into shallow water without hitting bottom. (3) It's also a two-story tall robot. Its weight would sink it into the sand. So it could have very well been down that deep.

DetectiveGadget85

Sentinel never sank into sand in other episodes.

Well, it's shown here.

DetectiveGadget85

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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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Battlestar Galactica picture

Saga of a Star World (1) - S1-E1

Plot hole: Apollo takes Adama down to the surface of Caprica aboard his Viper, yet the Viper is a single-seat fighter. This is the only time the single-seat craft is used to carry two people (though there is no shot of the two aboard - it is simply shown landed with the two characters nearby).

johnrosa

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Suggested correction: It was 2 seater Viper training aircraft.

stiiggy

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The Invisible Man picture

Show generally

Plot hole: "Sight Unseen": Wells has the key to Lori's shackles. Weston, who knows this, knocks Wells out, but instead of taking his keys, uses a completely unnecessary (and considerably more difficult) set of bolt cutters to break the leg cuffs. (00:32:30)

Jean G

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Star Trek: Deep Space Nine picture

The Die is Cast (2) - S3-E21

Plot hole: Earlier in the season, it was established that The Jem'Hadar are genetically engineered to be loyal to the Changelings, meaning they will not deliberately harm them. With that in mind, the Changelings still care about Odo's well being despite his refusal to return to them. So why didn't the Lovok Changeling send a message to The Jem'Hadar ships to inform them that a Changeling was going to be on the runabout? Given that he took time to offer another chance to return to his people, you would think he'd take time to make sure he returned to the station safely.

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Suggested correction: Maybe The Jem'Hadar were trying to disable the runabout to try and capture Odo and Garak.

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The Last Ship picture

Phase Six - S1-E1

Plot hole: After the nuclear missile has overshot the ship and is determined to be heading for land, a map on a computer display gives an indication of the missile's trajectory relative to the Nathan James and western Europe. After the nuclear detonation, an external shot shows the blast is to the port side of the ship, giving the impression the ship is on a southern bearing off the west coast of France. At the time of detonation, the bridge crew shield their eyes while facing the front of the bridge, which would give the impression the ship is pointed right at the blast rather than off the port side. Later, Master Chief Jeter reports that the jet stream is pushing the radiation north-northeast, as if to indicate the ship is currently sitting in the fallout zone, when this would actually be pushing the radiation cloud away from the Nathan James.

solarpilot

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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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Twin Peaks picture

Episode Sixteen - S2-E9

Plot hole: In the bait and switch section, why does anyone involved agree to Leland being Ben's attorney when both victims are relatives of Leland? Neither Ben nor any of the police are in on Cooper's plan, and it seems implausible at best that they would agree to this.

pinkwafer

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V (1984)

V picture

The Deception - S2-E4

Plot hole: Ham Tyler doesn't recognise Kyle Bates even though he met him in the internment camp in episode 3. Ham also makes exactly the same remark about Nathan Bates in both episodes. (00:10:30)

Daz

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UFO (1970)

UFO picture

The Psychobombs - S1-E12

Plot hole: The alien-possessed Mason steals Captain Lauritzen's fingerprints by pressing his fingertips to the captain's and "heat transferring" the prints. Big problems here: those prints would now be backwards and for the wrong hand. But when the computer later reads the prints, it fails to notice this and passes him through security as "Identity Correct." (00:23:30)

Jean G

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Sliders picture

The Exodus (2) - S3-E17

Plot hole: If Quinn has the timer that could be used multiple times without trouble, why couldn't he take back Remmy and Wade then come back and save the world in peril?

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Revolution picture

Dreamcatcher - S2-E15

Plot hole: Every time the nanos stop absorbing electricity (for whatever reason), street lights, radios, everything 'on the grid' immediately starts to come back on. No re-building infrastructure, no restarting turbines, etc., even 15 year old streetlights lying on the ground, in the middle of nowhere.

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Lost in Space picture

Impact - S1-E1

Plot hole: The show starts with the Jupiter crashing into the planet... also the other Jupiter seems to have had problems landing on the unnamed planet... why? The Jupiters were fully capable of flying around the planet as we saw it in other moments. None of them were attacked by the robot, they are not escape pods. So why crash land into the planet? Also why get out of the ship just to be stranded on an icy hellhole? The space ship is waterproof, as we saw in another episode. So why get out just to have one person go in again and get trapped on ice? And that's just the tips of the iceberg, pun intended.

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Knight Rider picture

Season 1 generally

Plot hole: KITT was able to disable or scramble gears and locks. But whenever he is on a car lift he becomes "helpless." Unable to gain access to the controls to lower him.

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Eureka picture

In Too Deep - S5-E8

Plot hole: Carter is apparently just learning about Feynman's Day, which Allison explains as "Eureka's version of April Fool's Day." It's highly improbable that Carter could have lived in Eureka for five years and still be oblivious of this, especially given all of the hijinks that happen.

Knever

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