Best thriller TV plot holes of all time

Please vote as you browse around to help the best rise to the top.

Battlestar Galactica picture

Scattered - S2-E1

Plot hole: Gaeta and Tigh both reference the fact that the Galactica crew computes the changes in stellar drift for FTL jumps and then sends out the info to the rest of the fleet for their use. However, when they fail to rendezvous with the fleet after the emergency jump, Gaeta realizes a mistake has been made and says that Galactica's info is out of date. This creates a major plot hole because if Galactica sends out the new info to the fleet, Galactica would always have the most up to date info for FTL jumps. The crew would be able to solve the lost fleet crisis by simply reloading the last coordinates that Galactica sent out and jumping there where the fleet would be waiting for them. There would be no need to go back to the previous coordinates and recompute the jump.

Guy

More Battlestar Galactica plot holes
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles picture

Samson & Delilah - S2-E1

Plot hole: When John inserts Cameron's CPU, she restarts nearly instantly. She recognizes John right away and speaks to him by name. Yet seconds later, we see through her eyes as her system reports recognizing him, but she already does.

johnrosa

More Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles plot holes
Beast Wars: Transformers picture

Season 2 generally

Plot hole: Series 2, Episode 11, The Agenda (1). The Tripredacus Council explains that Ravage will be able to find Megatron and the others by tracing the transwarp wavefront back through time to its source. If he truly did follow it back to when it started he would have arrived moments after Optimus destroyed the alien weapon in "Other Voices: Part Two" which created it, yet he arrives considerably farther in the future.

More Beast Wars: Transformers plot holes
Lost picture

Adrift - S2-E2

Plot hole: Seeing as Jin dived in right after Sawyer, to save him, when Sawyer came up Jin should have been right next to him, or at least in view. However Sawyer hears Jin's voice as if he is miles away when he surfaces, and he is not visible at all.

More Lost plot holes
Digimon picture

Season 1 generally

Plot hole: When the DigiDestined return to the real world, Izzy states that only a few minutes have passed by despite the weeks that have elapsed in the DigiWorld. However, in an earlier episode, Tai returns to the real world for hours and upon his return to the DigiWorld, only a few weeks have passed by.

More Digimon plot holes
The Outer Limits picture

The Man Who Was Never Born - S1-E6

Plot hole: Andro has memorized "every detail" of Cabot Jr.'s life, including his mother's name, Noel. Yet when he travels to the past, meets Noel and learns her name, he still mistakes Cabot Sr. for Cabot Jr., who isn't born yet. Having memorized all those details, he would have known the moment he met her that Noel was Jr.'s mother. Andro's confusion makes no sense. (00:28:00)

Jean G

More The Outer Limits plot holes
Homeland picture

Casus Belli - S6-E5

Plot hole: Later in the evening, after NYPD takes Quinn into custody, Carrie finds his cell phone, with pictures showing their home had been spied upon from across the street, as well as other evidence of a conspiracy. He had tried to hand her the phone right after the police broke in, but it was knocked from his hand and she discovered it under the smashed door. In the real world, Carrie's home would have been considered a crime scene and the police would have searched it thoroughly, top to bottom, undoubtedly finding the phone themselves, but are shown driving away after the confrontation.

stevewaclo

More Homeland plot holes
Ozark picture

Pick a God and Pray - S4-E9

Plot hole: Ruth enters Darlene's home at night, crossing over the crime scene tape. She proceeds to the barn where she finds all of Darlene's heroin packed up neatly. This is factually impossible. Once the police had secured the crime scene in the house, they would have searched the entire property and would have discovered and seized the heroin at that time. (00:54:38 - 00:56:09)

More Ozark plot holes
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)

More Murder, She Wrote plot holes
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
Goosebumps picture

Attack Of The Mutant (1) - S2-E2

Plot hole: Skipper spots the Masked Mutant's headquarters the first time he goes past. He then goes back the next day, and the headquarters have vanished. He then goes back a third time, and the headquarters aren't there yet again. However Skipper says "How can it be. It was right here yesterday," although it wasn't.

More Goosebumps plot holes
X-Men: Evolution picture

Grim Reminder - S1-E11

Plot hole: In the end of the episode, Wolverine is seen recuperating after surgery removes the microchip in his brain, and his head is bandaged. Performing invasive surgery on Wolverine's brain isn't possible, since that would require going through his adamantium-infused skull and no conventional material is capable of that. Only a less invasive technique (such as going through the cranial sutres or cranial foramen) would have been effective and that most likely would not have required Wolverine's head to be bandaged (especially with his rapid healing mutant ability).

More X-Men: Evolution plot holes
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

More The Twilight Zone plot holes
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
Justified picture

When the Guns Come Out - S3-E6

Plot hole: Raylan has a hunch that Winona took the money again from the evidence room, so checks the locker, finds the empty box, and assumes she stole it. When they returned the money in the previous season, he said "Put it back anywhere except for where you found it", so as to make it easier for someone to assume it had been misplaced, rather than lost. So the locker being empty is hardly a smoking gun for him to assume Winona's taken the cash.

Jon Sandys

More Justified plot holes
Strike Back picture

Project Dawn #10 - S2-E10

Plot hole: After Grant finishes her video confession, Latif puts the video recorder in his cargo pant pocket. A few scenes later, he's blown up without ever having taken the video camera out of his pocket. He was at the epicenter of the explosion and he and his clothes were very much on fire, which should have completely destroyed the video camera and its recording.

More Strike Back 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

More Dexter plot holes
The Shield picture

Blowback - S1-E5

Plot hole: Detective Vendrell and his girlfriend are out looking for his stolen black Navigator, but they pull over and interrogate drivers of a blue Navigator.

bnemirow

More The Shield plot holes
The Wild Wild West picture

The Night of the Raven - S2-E3

Plot hole: Antoinette is making miniature clothes for the soon-to-be shrunken West, but when West drinks the antidote to make him normal-sized, he is wearing the same clothes which would have been shredded as he grew back to normal size.

Scott215

More The Wild Wild West plot holes

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.