Page Turner - S5-E2
Factual error: All the victims were supposedly killed using thalium-201 - a radioactive isotope with a half-life of just 72 hours. e.g.: In the space of two months there would be 10 nanograms for every gram applied to the source of the radiation poisoning (i.e the book) - not enough to make Sid ill without making the perp very ill. He would have had a much higher dose than anyone infected.
Sex, Lies, And Silicone - S5-E4
Continuity mistake: After Hawkes pats his old friend on the shoulder with the newspaper in front of the hotdog stall, there is a brief shot in which Hawkes is empty handed. In the next shot he's holding the newspaper again.
Revealing mistake: Season 5, episode 8, "My Name is Mac Taylor": When the killer sets himself on fire, he's not wearing any gloves. In the next shot he is, to protect the stuntman from the flames.
Plot hole: At the end of the episode, Adam and Stella are checking how many others there are bearing the same name in a government database. "Stella Bonasera" gives one result, being the Bonasera character. A search for "Sid Hammerback" also gives one result, a 90 year old woman (the characters say it has to be his mother). But Sid himself should have shown up too, with the search yielding two results, not just one.
Revealing mistake: At the end of the episode, Jamie Sunderland receives a message from her father to not look back. The closeup on the phone's display shows that the phone is offline and it is visible that the message is in fact a wallpaper.
Audio problem: When Sid hands Mac the test tube with the metal splinter, Mac says "Looks metallic". There is a full frontal shot of Mac's face, and his mouth doesn't move.
Continuity mistake: An assistant shows Craig T Nelson and Gary Sinise a mockup of a New York Ledger news page, with a photo of an NYPD officer and a headline that reads: line 1 - "NY's", line 2 - "Finest take", line 3 - "A break". When Sinise takes the photo and puts it on the desk a few seconds later, the text layout is on 2 lines instead of 3. (00:22:45)
Continuity mistake: Season 5, episode 15 ("The Party's Over). After Mac talks to Dunbrook in the park, the latter walks away with a cup of coffee in his right hand. When the shot changes, his cup is instantly gone.
Green Piece - S5-E17
Continuity mistake: When Danny asks Lindsay if she is excited to go back to Montana, Lindsay replies she is excited to see her mom so her mom can see her pregnant, but it is revealed in later seasons that her mother died when she was young and that she only has a dad.
Green Piece - S5-E17
Audio problem: Season 5, episode 17 "Green Piece": When Stella is typing on the Apple keyboard she hardly lifts her fingers from the keys, yet we hear a loud clicking sound. That type of keyboard doesn't make that kind of sound, unless you pound the keys with great force. Also, the clicking sounds don't match up with her keystrokes.
Revealing mistake: Season 5, episode 18 "Point of No Return": When Danny fires at the bad guy, there are sparks coming from the metal pipes when his bullets hit them. One of the things causing the sparks burns too slowly, taking over a second before it fades out.
Audio problem: Season 5, episode 18 "Point of No Return": When Hawkes is talking to Mac about the fibers he found, there's a brief shot of his silhouette in which his lips don't move while talking.
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)
Factual error: The episode has a character in it called Klaus Braun ("Braun" being the German word for "brown"). However, all of the characters pronounce his surname wrong, saying the "au" like the "or" in "bored", not the proper German pronunciation, which would in fact, be the same as the English meaning, "Brown". Other German character's names were pronounced correctly, and surely Klaus/Abraham would object to having his name pronounced incorrectly.
Factual error: Season 5, episode 23 "Greater Good": A guy runs over a little girl in 2007. A flashback of the crime scene has Stella showing Mac a photo of the dead girl on a digital camera. The screen info shows 2009/3/25. Two years in the future?
Grounds for Deception - S5-E24
Revealing mistake: When Mac shows Stella the photo of The Professor and her "mother", you see that it is the actress (Melina Kanakaredes) with a wig on.
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.