Best action TV plot holes of all time

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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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Luke Cage picture

Take It Personal - S1-E10

Plot hole: They only take out the shrapnel from the gut shot - they never deal with the shrapnel in his shoulder at all. (00:04:25 - 00:05:00)

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Rome picture

Show generally

Plot hole: The ages of the children on the show are really inconsistent. When the show starts in 50 BC, Octavian is around 12, Lucius is an infant and Vorena the Younger is at least 8 (given that she must have been concieved before Vorenus left for Gaul). Three years later Caesarion was born. When Simon Woods takes over the role of Octavian, Octavian is around 19, as stated on the show. Lucius should be seven but looks like he's four and Vorena should be fifteen but still looks eight. Episode 9 of season two takes place in 32 BC, 18 years after the first episode. Octavian might very well be 30, but Lucius (who would be 18) is around seven, Vorena (who would be 26) is a pre-teen and Caesarion (who would be 15) is around eight. Even if the events were moved up so that episode 9 is actually set earlier, the ages of the children still don't match when compared to how much the other characters have aged.

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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

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Alias picture

Unveiled - S3-E18

Plot hole: Vaughan discovers Lauren is a mole when he goes through her briefcase and discovers the wig, gun and fake passport she used in Germany a few hours before - surely even the worst secret agent in the world would have enough sense to get rid of such incriminating evidence as soon as possible, and not carry it back to the USA (sneaking it onto a plane, presumably) and leaving it in the room where the man you're lying to sleeps. Lauren is a highly skilled agent, if the Covenant selected her for a mission this important, so it's out of character (without an explanation) for her to be so sloppy.

Shay

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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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CSI: Miami picture

High Octane - S5-E7

Plot hole: When Dex is doing the jack in the box ,he is hanging out the sun roof driving with his feet, using the cruise control. When he is decapitated, the body falls and the car spins out and stops. The car's cruise control was still on. The car should have kept going until the brake was pressed. Even if the body hit the brake on the way down, it would have coasted to a stop and not spun out and screeched to a stop.

Boobra

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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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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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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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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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NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service picture

Truth or Consequences - S7-E1

Plot hole: Near the end of the episode when Tony, Ziva and McGee are fleeing from the building where they were held captive, Gibbs appears out of nowhere to save their lives. But just moments before, Gibbs was more than a mile away, acting as a sniper.

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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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Quantum Leap picture

Another Mother - September 30, 1981 - S2-E13

Plot hole: Sam wallops both kidnappers and rescues the son. They then leave the two child molesters unconscious beside their van. No one calls the police or has them arrested, so they're free to kidnap another kid. Sam doesn't leap until after an epilogue in which the loose ends are supposed to be resolved - but this question is left unanswered. It's not excused by a "just because we didn't see it happen doesn't mean it didn't" defense. The viewers shouldn't be left with a dangling plot hole, and one line could have cured this one.

Jean G

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Teen Titans picture

Titans Together - S5-E12

Plot hole: After the battle, when Robin tosses Beast Boy the Brain for freezing, the Puppet King is seen among the assembled Titans (on the right, next to Herald and Jericho). Somewhat odd, considering that the Puppet King is a villain and not getting frozen up like his compatriots.

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Transformers picture

Desertion of the Dinobots (1) - S2-E19

Plot hole: Perceptor discovers that the reason for their malfunctioning is because their Cybertonium has deteriorated after millions of years of being exposed to Earth's atmosphere. The key word here being 'millions'. This explains why the original Transformers who crash landed on Earth (4 million years ago) are affected, but newer characters like Perceptor, Powerglide, Hoist, etc. are affected despite the fact that they have only been on Earth recently.

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