Best crime TV character mistakes of 2004

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Hustle picture

The Road Less Travelled - S5-E6

Character mistake: The plan hatched by Carlton Wood and Harry Fielding makes no sense at all. They recruit three people who they think were victims of Micky Bricks' crew, asking them each to deposit a cheque for £1,000,000 into an account that their accomplice Alfie will show to Albert Stroller to "prove" his wealth. They are on a hiding to nothing. A bank statement will always show a ledger balance - all funds including uncleared cheques - and an available balance, the amount of money in the account that can be withdrawn at any one time. Alfie's account will show an available balance of nil and will convince nobody of anything. A city wideboy like Wood would know this and would ask for the deposits to be made by account transfer or even in cash, or he could even cut out of the middle men and prepare a fake bank statement. A ruthless businessman like him would have no trouble at all arranging a simple thing like that. The way he does things is uncharacteristically clumsy and includes nothing but loose ends.

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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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Boston Legal picture

Oral Contracts - S4-E8

Character mistake: Lorraine mistakenly tells Denny to "call 999" instead of 911, and when asked about it by Katie, denies having ever spent time in the UK (later revealed to be a lie). But this isn't some high-pressure slip of the tongue, she's highly intelligent and has been in America for a decent length of time, is working hard to maintain her facade of being born and bred American, so there's no way she'd slip up over such an obvious thing.

Jon Sandys

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