Best factual TV mistakes

When Cindy wanted a hitman to kill Ian she looks in the yellow pages to find one. Surely the police and the makers of the yellow pages would have been alerted if a hitman agency wants to advertise itself in the yellow pages?

In the episode 'I Only Have Eyes For You', during the flashbacks to 1955 James and Grace dance, and James later shoots himself, to the song 'I Only Have Eyes For You', which wasn't released until 1959.

When Shawn is talking to Belle over the phone, the Eiffel Tower can be seen outside her window, yet, she's supposed to be in Milan, Italy.

In the episode where Sydney is supposed to be in Helsinki, there are visible skyscrapers in the background. There are no skyscrapers in Helsinki.

Phoebe's greatest love David leaves her to go to Minsk and comes and goes throughout the whole show, telling stories of Minsk on the way i.e. of the long months when the sun does not rise and the constant freezing cold. Minsk, being the capital of Belarus (although claimed to be in Russia for reasons explained in Corrections), is approximately as high up north as i.e. Wales and northern coast of Germany, and even during the winter months there is always daylight for several hours. Although winters in Eastern Europe are cold, the kind of coldness described by David would more believably happen in Siberia than Minsk, and the summers are just as nice and hot as everywhere in Europe.

S12 E6 Overlogging: Kyle says he has to log on before school. The next shot shows "Monday 8 days later." 8 days before is a Sunday.

Magnetic tape recorders weren't available outside of Germany during World War II. True the tape recorder could have been captured from the Germans, but, as it was "cutting edge" technology for 1941, it would hardy likely to have ended up in a hospital office.

An egotistical, prissy and dishonest lawyer like Mr. Fletcher wouldn't make the mistake of allowing his name to be misspelled on his office door. It reads "Winfred Fletcher." His first name, as it's pronounced throughout the episode, is "Winford."

In episode 7-18: "Little Box of Horrors," Katya (as Nina) says that Pandora's Box is "a gift the gods gave to Prometheus." But the Box was given to Epimetheus, not Prometheus. Epimetheus ignored the warnings of Prometheus, his brother, and accepted Pandora herself, who bore a box, as a gift from the gods.

Solo blows open the ceiling vent of Illya and Marion's cell, and she stands on Illya's shoulders until Solo can reach her and pull her out. This leaves Illya with nothing/no one to stand on, no way to reach the vent and no apparent way out of the cell. But he's out just the same in the next scene, with no explanation as to how.

At the very beginning of the episode, Leonard says, "So you see what you're eating is not technically yogurt because it doesn't have enough live active acidophilus cultures". But to meet the U.S. standards for yogurt, only the starter cultures Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus are required, not Lactobacillus acidophilus. Source: FDA Website, Knowledge of Yogurt industry standards http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfCFR/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=131.200&SearchTerm=yogurt.

House is playing 'Metroid: Zero Mission' on his Gameboy at various times. The Metroid series does not feature space monkeys, nor are there distinct levels. The sounds coming from the game in the show do not match it in real life, and Samus morphing into a ball is most definitely not a failure state.

(Episode 17-1) Alec Baldwin, as an expert on manatees, says that they are also called dugongs. Manatees are found in Atlantic coastal waters and in the Amazon and tributaries. The dugong is a distinct species found in the coastal waters of the Indian and southwest Pacific oceans.

In the opening credits for episode 5-1: "Arrival," Kristin Kreuk's first name was misspelled as "Kristen." The credits sequence, which was new for Season 5, was corrected by the time the second episode of the season aired.

The story is set in 1289, when Marco Polo was anxious to leave China against Kublai Khan's wishes, so what's Polo doing on the Pamir Plateau?

Aetius' troops don't look anything like 5th century Roman soldiers. They are carrying a large rectangular shield, a pilum (a spear which was used for throwing) and a sword (gladius) on their right. This was typical for the Roman army until about the 3rd century A.D. In Aetius' time, the soldiers would have had smaller oval shields, a hasta (a lance used for stabbing and for fending off cavalry attacks) and a sword (spatha) on their left. Also, there would be an enormous amount of "barbarian" mercenaries in the Roman army (Goths, Vandals, even Huns.), so it was hardly a Roman army anymore. And where's Aetius' cavalry?

In Deja Vu, after Vicky steals Timmy's Cosmo watch, she redoes the time to when it was after school. Vicky redoes the time so that a million cats appear to torture Timmy. They throw him out a window which really has solid glass and no sliding doors. He should have been hit onto the window.

In this episode, Mulder says that he's red/green colorblind. Colorblind people cannot be F.B.I. agents.

During the entire series, the view of Jerry's door from the hallway is of a flat wall with the door in line, yet from inside the apartment, not only does the kitchen angle into the hallway, but Jerry's fridge is recessed into the wall. The wall behind it should be blocking the hallway completely.

The verse Octavia recites is from Virgilius' poem "the Aeneid". That poem was written at least a quarter of a decade after the death of Caesar.

Series 5, Episode 13 : "Shock". When Nikki is found dead, electrocuted in her bath by having a tanning lamp thrown into the water with her, the lamp is shown as being on, fully lit, and mysterious blue electric lights are playing about around it. However, when the CSI crew enter the room they note that the safety on the plug tripped instantly - 'just not in time'. There should have been no power to the lamp, then.

In this episode we see Blithe get shot in the neck and are told that he died in 1948. In reality he was shot in the shoulder and survived. He later served in Korea and was promoted to master sergeant as well as receiving the paratrooper of the year award. Blithe died in 1967 while on active duty in Germany.

In the genie part, when Peter wishes he had no bones he is still talking, but if he wished for no bones he wouldn't have a skull to talk.

In the beginning of the episode "Show and Tell", you can see Woody clipping his toenails on the bed. You can see how many toes he has one of his feet. He has 5 toes. Yet, in one of the first episodes, Woody states he has 8 toes on one foot and 3 on the other.

When Dexter and Doakes are looking at the severed foot wearing a soccer cleat, Dexter states, "The foot was severed between the tarsus and the metatarsus." However, the foot was severed proximal to the tarsus, through the tibia and fibula. The cut was easily too high to be between the tarsus and metatarsus.

As has been noted, the problem with pressure differentials will make it impossible to flood someone's room with CO2 from sublimating dry ice anyway, but there is another problem. Dry ice sublimates at -78.5 C. That gas is going to be very, very cold and it will rapidly bring the temperature of the room down to a very uncomfortable level. Before a sleeping person suffocates they would be woken by the freezing cold.

In "Klub Katz" the captian yells "Iceburg, Iceburg, on the starboard side." But when you see the iceburg and the ship, the iceburg was about to hit the bow of the ship.

In the third scene, when Doug stops Jack for speeding, both vehicles in the scene have North Carolina state safety inspection stickers in the lower driver side windshields, as opposed to a Massachusetts inspection sticker (which would be on the passenger side).

In the opening shot of the episode they show a plane landing at an airport, and it say Dulles International Airport on the screen. There is even a nice shot of the US Capitol building in the background, the problem is that Dulles Airport is about 25 miles from Washington, if the shot is real it was filmed at Reagan National Airport.

Aron Eisenberg's name is misspelled on-screen as Aron Eisenerg.