Firefly (2002) - 27 mistakes in series 1

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

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: 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.

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 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."

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

Visible crew/equipment: When Mal and Saffron go into the apartment to steal the Lassiter, a figure is reflected in the door of the phone booth behind them. It has pale trousers like Mal, but the movements don't match his and I believe it's a camera man.

Continuity: At the end, when Inara is closing the lid on the trash container there are three shots. From behind Inara, she has her gun in her lap (in her right hand) and is waving with her left, but from Saffron's point of view Inara has both hands in her lap, then Inara is back to waving again.

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: 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: 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: The characters in this show often use the made-up curse words 'goram' and 'gorammit.' Toward the end of this episode, just as Tracey grabs Kaylee as a hostage, he shouts, "Gorammit, Mal." The subtitles read: "You're a rabbit, Mal."

Continuity: At the beginning of the episode, Jayne receives a hat from his mother in the post, and when he takes it out of the package it is covered in wood shavings or some similar packing material. He puts it on his head like that, but for the remainder of the scene, the hat alternates from being covered in shavings to clean and back again.

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 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: 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.

Continuity: The cut the doctor makes on Tracey is small, but once Mal is on top of Tracey, the cut is a lot longer.