Firefly (2002) - 27 mistakes in entire show

Continuity: When Saffron first hits Wash, he falls with his head in the centre of the doorway (from our point of view), but a second later, when she goes to lift his legs through the door so she can shut it, his head is noticeably more to the left (again, from the viewer's point of view).

Continuity: When Inara finds Mal unconscious in his quarters, his head is resting up against the wall. When the angle changes to show her running over to him, he has moved away from the wall and his head is on the floor. After she has called for help, his head is once again up against the wall.

Continuity: Right after Simon gives his "box dropping man ape gone wrong" line, as Kaylee says "you're pretty funny", he starts to take a drink. When Kaylee finishes talking, the shot changes to in front of them both and Simon's hand and mug are now in his lap.

Continuity: When the foreman first slaps Simon on the back, the muddy handprint has quite identifiable finger marks, but in the next shot, when Simon is walking away, the muddy shape has changed. In a subsequent shot, the mudprint has disappeared entirely.

Continuity: One of the candles on Simon's birthday cake keeps blowing out and re-lighting itself between shots.

Continuity: Kaylee has just put Simon's birthday cake down on the table when the explosion happens, but in many subsequent shots of both the table and the floor in the dining room, the cake is nowhere to be seen.

Continuity: When we see the flashback of Mal and Zoe first entering Serenity's cargo bay, just after Mal has bought the ship, there is a cable on the floor behind them. For a short moment, we see the cable being dragged over the grille right behind them, then the shot changes and there is nothing there at all; the only cable is much further back and lying at a completely different angle.

Revealing: At a number of points during the duel, the 'mist' in the field can be seen being pumped out from behind the tree, not drifting as it should.

Continuity: During the duel, after Atherton breaks Mal's sword, he puts the blade to Mal's chest with his arm straight and his wrist slightly bent. The angle changes, and Atherton is suddenly holding the sword with his elbow bent and a straight wrist, in a completely different manner.

Other: Near the end when Mal and Zoe show up to save Simon and River, who are about to be burned at the stake, Mal says "Gotta say Doctor, your talent for alienating folks, it's near miraculous". The subtitles say "Gotta say Doctor, [inaudible], it's near miraculous."

Continuity: When Simon is briefing Mal, Zoe and Jayne, his top changes from a blue shirt and waistcoat to a brown zipped top and back again several times.

Continuity: In the scene where Malcolm Reynolds is being tortured, after Zoe takes Wash away, the villain cuts off Malcolm's left ear. The shot changes, and then returns to Malcolm, showing the other side of his face. Now the visible ear, the right one, is missing. The shot changes to the front, and now his left ear is missing again.

Continuity: The size of the red marks on Wash's body change from when he first leaves the torture chamber to going into the cockpit of the shuttle.

Continuity: In the close-up shot of the explosive in the sticky substance being applied to the outside of the cargo hold, the pink wire sticks out at the bottom, and in a loop in the middle. In the next shot, from slightly further back, the wire doesn't stick out anywhere, and the shape of the explosive ring has changed and become more oval.

Continuity: Just prior to the crazy Ivan, Kaylee tells Jayne to cut the hydraulics to the port engine, yet it is the port engine which rotates to perform the maneuver. Also, the cut scenes of the engine thrusting just prior to and after the crazy Ivan are reversed.

Deliberate "mistake": After the Crazy Ivan, where they escape from the Reaver ship, the shot of Mal, Wash and Zoe celebrating on the bridge. Wash has his hands out in front of him like he's still holding the stick, but there's nothing in his hands. In the commentary, Joss Whedon mentions that, in order to get the shot right, they had to move the seat back far enough that Alan Tudyk couldn't reach the controls, so they instructed him to mime it.

Deliberate "mistake": When Nandi confronts Rance stealing the baby, it is a plastic doll and not a live child in his arms.

Continuity: The first shot we see of Nandi waking up shows her hair loose on the pillow, and her hand curled up on the sheet beside her; in the next shot, a close-up, her hair is mostly tucked behind her ear and her hand is closer to her face than previously.

Continuity: When Nandi is killed, she falls to the floor on her back, her left arm by her side and her right on the floor by her head. We see her in this position a number of times, but when Mal and Inara look at one another at the end of this scene, Nandi's left arm is now lying across her chest. Neither of the other characters did this to her.

Continuity: When talking to Saffron after being caught by her husband while holding the Lassiter, Mal refers to her as 'Yo/Saff/Bridge', an amalgam of her three aliases, Yolanda, Saffron, and Bridget. The subtitle reads this as "Speaking Chinese."