Continuity mistake: During Dwayne's annual appraisal, Humphrey holds a bic pen that faces different directions in the reverse shots (easy to tell from the cap being on opposite sides). At the end of it he removes his hand from the desk, but it is back at the middle of the questionnaire in the next shot. (00:00:50)
Continuity mistake: Humphrey passes the bridge and meets by chance the distressed ginger; when he startles her, the phone instantaneously switches from right to left hand. (00:03:40)
Continuity mistake: A business card from CityMet Bank comes into play. Humphrey points at the whiteboard with the card, but in the next shot the card becomes a magic marker. (00:23:00)
Continuity mistake: In the Scotland Yard office, DI Humphrey Goodman turns around and finds the teleconferencing DI Jack Mooney on screen. He announces to the team "I think I may have found him", and turns around, holding the phone closer to his chest. The movement is repeated in the next shot. (00:28:50)
Continuity mistake: Humphrey picks up the folders of the suspects from Mooney's desk using his left hand, and in the next shot they are in his right hand. (00:31:10)
Continuity mistake: Jack sits at the conference table, next to Florence. She moves the hand away from the notepad, but it's back on it at the cut. (00:34:20)
Continuity mistake: Jack tells the silly story of his cuff-collecting, one-armed uncle; in the reaction shot, Humphrey is sitting with his left arm up in a recognizable position, which changes in the next shot. (00:35:40)
Continuity mistake: JP is interviewing the widow. When she is reacting to the latest questions, her hand is open in the frontals, closed in the rear views. (00:37:00)
Continuity mistake: Humphrey puts on the banker's desk the printed article that establishes him as an old friend of the victim. The paper is in a different spot of the desk depending on the camera angle - you can easily tell by the upper left corner of the sheet, that either juts out from the other papers on the desk, or is properly on top of them. (00:45:10)
Continuity mistake: In the intro, Dominic Green greets the client from Saint Marie. A few people are passing by the car when he opens the door, but when he closes them those people vanished in thin air. (00:01:55)
Continuity mistake: The detectives are discussing the presence of the cufflink. Humphrey asks if "He's taken his own life in remorse", and the camera cuts to the deceased. Notice an iPhone on the desk by him. A moment later, the phone rings and Humphrey has to search the victim's pockets to come up with the phone. (00:04:55)
Continuity mistake: Jack and Humphrey are following the taxi in Jack's grey car, the registration number is DG60 SGY when they start following the taxi and LN63 FEJ when they park in front of it. (00:14:50 - 00:16:25)
Continuity mistake: Up to the point when Martin West says he took the gun to 'impress the lads', Florence has her hair to the right of her face going in front of the shoulder. New shot, and there's much of it combed back, and it keeps going back and forth until it's again all in the front in Florence's next close-up. (00:26:15)
Continuity mistake: At the pub towards the end of the episode, Jack brings a glass of rum to Dwayne. He hands it to him with his left, but you can see in the shot when he begins to get seated that it's the right arm that he has extended. (00:48:10)
Continuity mistake: When Martha says "Yes" to Humphrey, the waiter in the background has his hands free. She kisses him in the next shot, and in order to clap with the others the waiter has to put down two wine glasses he was holding. (00:49:45)
In the Footsteps of a Killer - S6-E7
Continuity mistake: Dwayne pulls up from the evidence box the gun used for the murder; he holds it at the bottom part of the handle, but he his holding it with a finger near the trigger in the next shot. (00:05:30)
In the Footsteps of a Killer - S6-E7
Continuity mistake: Jack recovers from Nadine Hunter's belongings a little bag containing hair. His fingers are in the middle of the bag in some shots, on the left corner of it in others. (00:15:00)
In the Footsteps of a Killer - S6-E7
Continuity mistake: During the interview at the bar, the quantity of coconut and rum in Tony Garret's glass changes between shots multiple times. Easiest bit to spot it is towards the end when he brags that he could find a dozen witnesses in an hour; as he says that line, the liquor barely covers half of the ice cubes, but after a brief cut on Ardal O'Hanlon, the glass is full enough to cover most of them. (00:26:00)
In the Footsteps of a Killer - S6-E7
Continuity mistake: The forensics team consisting of JP and his DJ cousin has produced the magnified audio of the background noise featured in the taping. Everyone turns then to the whiteboard, but Florence's hand position on her mug does not match in the different shot shots (thumb on or off the rim, mug raised as she drinks, mug in front of her chest). (00:31:20)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the episode, Edwina Bousquet scoffs at the apology and gets up. Close-up of Judith Dawson, and you can see for a second in the background the bike with Danny John-Jules entering the premises. But there is no sound effect for it and in the next cuts he's nowhere to be seen; he arrives only later. (00:00:25)
Answer: There's probably no particular reason. Sets and props on long-running TV shows often change as needed and for various reasons throughout a series run.
raywest ★