V (1984) - 79 mistakes in entire show

Continuity: When Mike and his friend escape from the helicopters in El Salvador, Mike's hair, clothes and camera are wet just before they pass in the river. They were not wet in the previous shot.

Continuity: During the battle in El Salvador, the jar on the chair behind Mike and his friend is shot. Some shots later, the jar has disappeared.

Continuity: When the old woman firebombs the Visitor craft, the scene changes from broad daylight to dusk, and then back to daylight again. The three Visitors standing in front of the 'Valley Cleaners' shop also disappear.

Revealing: When Donovan escapes from the L.A. mothership with Robin and the Mexican, he once turns the fighter he is using upside down by mistake. But since the passengers have their heads hanging down then, how come Robin's long hair does not?

Continuity: When Julie and Robert infiltrate the hospital using the forged passes, the pass is shown twice as it is inserted into the reader. In the first shot, it slides in down whole, but the reader is still buzzing. In the second, the card starts sliding in again.

Continuity: When the fake Donovan is trying to rescue Julie, he is shot from behind. But in the next shot, the scorch mark is on his chest.

Revealing: After the failed raid on the Resistance's headquarters, Brian shoots the counterfeiter who led them there, but no scorch mark appears on his victim's shirt (later victims have these scorch marks).

Revealing: When Julie is almost converted, a fake Donovan bursts in and starts firing a blaster rifle. Look closely at the first shot: the rifle is held way too high, so the shot should have gone into the ceiling; yet the blast goes straight forward.

Plot hole: During the raid on the pumping station, Elias overpowers a Visitor guard and throws him off the catwalk - into a hall full of workers, engineers, and even more guards. Strange that no one notices.

Continuity: When the heroes are trying to blast open the bridge door, Elias knocks the shell of the explosive off with the butt of his laser rifle, bending it. When they rush onto the bridge a moment later, the stock is straight again.

Factual error: When the world celebrates the Visitors' flight, there are scenes of joyous people from all around the world. Curiously, in each of these scenes it is daytime - even in Italy, China, and India, where it would be either night or dawn, given that L.A. time of the attacks is between 11 and 12 AM.

Revealing: During the final battle in the mothership hangar, Donovan shoots a Visitor soldier who falls off his catwalk onto a transporter. When he impacts, a styrofoam block used to cushion his fall bounces off the roof.

Continuity: When the Red Dust is spread, there is a brief shot of some California citizens watching, and we see the Bernsteins among them. But the actress at George Mofogen/Mr. Bernstein's side is not Bonnie Bartlett, who played Mrs. Bernstein in the first two episodes.

Revealing: During the title sequence when Blair Tefkin's name comes up, Mike Donovan is riding a horse. A Visitor craft passes overhead and shoots at Donovan, but the laser appears out of nowhere instead of from the craft.

Continuity: The last time Donovan hits Diana's craft with a laser, he hits it on the right side. But inside the craft it's the left hand side that explodes.

Continuity: When Diana is being chased by Donovan after crashing her craft, she has her normal human eyes. But during Donovan's strangulation attempt she has lizard eyes. As we saw in the original series, a Visitor's human eyes had to be removed by hand before the lizard eyes could be seen underneath.

Revealing: When Robert and Julie are attacked by snakes outside the cave, notice that in the shots when you see the backs of Robert and Julie there are hardly any snakes on the ground (I counted one) compared to other shots. The shots of Robert's leg as he sweeps the snakes away are almost certainly of a snake handler instead of the actor.

Revealing: When Donovan finds Diana's abandoned car in the desert, the outside shots of the chopper reveal that it is not Marc Singer at the controls.

Continuity: After a talk with Diana on the mothership, Lydia is left alone and then she takes a message out of her uniform. She wears a ring on her left middle finger and her nails are painted red. In the following shot we see Lydia's hands put the message into a box. The hands do not have their nails painted and wear no ring whatsoever.

Plot hole: At the press conference Ham Tyler positions himself only a few feet in front of about half a dozen security guards, yet not one of them notices him, even when he starts shooting.

Audio problem: When Ham Tyler is shooting at Diana, two holes are made in a piece of wood behind her but only one shot is heard.

Continuity: When Elizabeth's arm is waving about above the cocoon, it is covered with scaly skin. But when she is seen standing up pulling the scaly skin off her face, both her arms have no scaly skin, and there wasn't enough time for her to remove it.

Audio problem: When the two dogs attack the Visitors, you can see them biting the Visitors on the ground but barking is still heard.

Revealing: When Elizabeth supposedly starts playing the piano, her shoulders aren't moving so it's easy to tell she's not touching any keys, even though notes are heard.

Visible crew/equipment: When Diana and Lydia are walking in the mothership corridor there are two things to look out for. When Lydia first starts talking a section of the whitescreen appears in the top right of the picture. Then a couple of seconds later the shadow of the camera appears on the door to her left.

Revealing: When Ham drives the van through the road barrier, the pieces fall off very easily considering how slowly he was travelling. In the next shot it is shown that the remaining barrier sections are both split vertically, revealing that they were sawed in the same direction beforehand, then the 'broken' pieces loosely affixed before the collision.

Continuity: When Mike is about to kiss Diana, he puts his thumb on her chin. Then in the next shot his thumb is away from her chin.

Visible crew/equipment: When Sean enters Mike's bedroom after the capture and says 'dad, you're awake', the boom mike is reflected briefly in the wall mirror.

Other: At the end of episode 2, Robin escapes from the Visitors into the wilderness. In episode 3, she's seen in an internment camp with no explanation as to how she got there. She is also wearing different clothes. She later escapes the camp along with other resistance members. Then at the beginning of episode 4, she is back alone in the wilderness, wearing the same clothes as at the end of episode 2. My guess is that episode 3 was added as an afterthought.

Continuity: When Diana is about to eat the white mouse, Donovan puts the tray of mice down on the bed, then in the following shot he puts it down again.

Continuity: When Ham Tyler is fixing the van in the garage, there is sunlight shining on him when the camera is facing out onto the street, but there is only normal daylight when the camera is facing inside the garage.

Continuity: When Mike pulls the necklace off the fake Julie, Julie's head is lying at a slightly different angle than when she changes into Lydia.

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.

Revealing: When Klaus skids and falls off his motorbike it is obviously a stuntman as his body is much stouter than the actor's.

Visible crew/equipment: The boom mike appears briefly in the top left of the screen when Julie tells Mike to wait after he walks out of the meeting room.

Continuity: When Sean throws the car keys away after punching Ham, Ham's head is above the steering wheel. In the next side-on shot, his head is much lower.

Plot hole: Kyle asks Elizabeth how she knocked out the guys at the theater, but he didn't actually see what happened as he was across the street facing away from the theater. And Elizabeth wouldn't have told him as she was trying to keep it a secret.

Revealing: When Kyle rescues Elizabeth from the theater, if you look closely at his face he has been replaced by a stuntman.

Revealing: When Kyle, Elizabeth and Robin are in the truck being chased by Mr. Chiang, in all the outside shots of the truck it is very easy to see that all three of them have been replaced by doubles.

Audio problem: Just after Mike wishes Ham good luck, Mike shoots a guard off the roof, but he falls before the gunshot is heard.

Revealing: Extremely obvious stunt double for Kyle Bates when he escapes from the clutches of Mr Chiang and jumps off the roof. The stunt double looks absolutely nothing like the actor, and his face is very visible.

Continuity: When Ham and Mike come out of the main door of the building, Mike shoots a guard standing on the roof. The guard falls off, but when the shot switches back to Mike the guard isn't seen falling to the ground.

Revealing: When Mr. Chiang does a roundhouse kick against Kyle Bates, he has been replaced by a stuntman. Easiest way to tell is by his hairstyle.

Revealing: When Diana offers the ants to the two officers, she is gripping the handle differently between the far shots and the closeup. Needless to say in the far shots the officers are not eating real ants.

Revealing: When the building explodes at the end, the white limousine parked in front of it completely disappears instead of exploding.

Revealing: When the girl cuts her hand with the broken bottle, the glass never touches her hand. The blood looks really fake too.

Deliberate "mistake": Several shots have been taken from Series 1, including the group of guards firing in the hangar bay, and various shots of the shuttles during the chase.

Continuity: When Kyle and Sarah arrive to help Mike and Ham, they drive through a group of Visitor guards, who all dive onto the embankment out of the way. But two seconds later, two of the guards are back on the dirt track.

Plot hole: Daniel is killed by Diana at the end of episode 7, but he reappears at the end of episode 8.

Continuity: When Mike radios Elias he identifies himself as 'wilderness' calling 'Shiloh'. When Elias acknowledges, he also identifies himself as 'wilderness' instead of 'Shiloh'.

Audio problem: Just before Mike and Ham start shooting up the bridge, Jacob is seen being tortured, but his mouth is not moving with the sounds he is supposed to be making.

Revealing: When Diana blasts Lydia's shuttle, there is an explosion but the craft is still visible and intact for a brief second.

Visible crew/equipment: In all of the shots of Elizabeth and Jacob facing down the highway, there is a black piece of equipment protruding from the left side of the screen.

Continuity: The Visitor craft that Mike and Ham capture is not the same type that is seen later entering the hangar. The first one is a small shuttle, the second is a transport, distinguishable by the windows on the side.

Audio problem: When Julie walks into Nathan Bates' office and says 'I've got a question for you' her lips do not match what is heard.

Audio problem: At the start of Nathan Bates' angry rant, he says 'What do you mean, another van of children got through the border?' and it has obviously been dubbed as it sounds different from his following lines. My guess is that he swore originally, and it was taken out by the producers at the last minute.

Audio problem: When Mike and Ham arrive at the church, their lines have been badly dubbed as Mike is still supposedly talking to Ham as he gets out and shuts the van door.

Deliberate "mistake": The shot of the cocoon gestating is taken from episode 2. This is evident because there is sand underneath it and rocks in the background, but when the tracker finds it later, there are no rocks and sand in the tunnel.

Continuity: When Elizabeth is pricked by the rose, there is a closeup of her bleeding finger. Before and after this shot Kyle is holding her hand, but not in the closeup.

Revealing: The two Elizabeths are both played by the same actress, except in the shots where both are seen together. Continuity mistakes in the second Elizabeth's death scene reveal this, such as the second Elizabeth's head position changing, and the first Elizabeth's jacket being open/closed between shots.

Deliberate "mistake": The shot of the mothership landing bay and the arrival of Charles' ship is stock footage that has been used several times before. There is also a continuity error here - the view from the landing bay shows darkness outside, but the next shot shows broad daylight.

Continuity: When Chris and Ham are sitting down talking about the conversion process, Ham gets up and walks over to the map. When he turns around Chris is suddenly standing in front of him, whereas he should still be sitting down.

Revealing: When Lydia eats the worm, it is not moving in the bowl before being picked up and is a different colour to all the moving ones. Needless to say it is not a real worm.

Revealing: Several times during the Charles v Mike fight scene it is obvious that Charles has been replaced by a stunt double.

Continuity: When Willie dies, Howie says 'he's gone' but Willie's head position changes between shots.

Deliberate "mistake": The shot of Willy running away from the parked car is taken from the episode where Elias is killed. Two things give this away - 1) Willy is wearing a different coloured jacket and 2) he is supposed to be seriously injured yet he sprints along the street.

Revealing: When John is holding the two mice, if you watch his left arm closely you can see his arm jerk beneath the table where he replaces the real mouse with an edible one.

Continuity: When Charles reads the message about Nathan Bates coming out of the coma, there are two things to look for during the closeup of the note. The logo on the top is replaced by writing and he grips the note in a different position from before. The writing changes yet again when the note is seen from behind.

Audio problem: When Ham grabs Howie's armband and says 'our man' it's painfully obvious that the words have been dubbed by Marc Singer instead of Michael Ironside.

Visible crew/equipment: The boom mike is visible at the top of the screen shortly after James starts talking to Diana in the mothership control room.

Continuity: Mike Donovan (riding a horse) is chased by a Visitor shuttle. It is obvious that there were recycled some shots from "The Final Battle" (Ep. 1). In "The Champion", Donovan does not have a laser pistol. However, there are some shots in which he has that pistol: obviously, those shots are taken from TFB.

Plot hole: In the opening scene we see Mike and Kyle driving in the truck. Kyle remarks that Mike has been driving since midnight and it is broad daylight outside. So they have supposedly been driving for several hours. Yet they start talking about their mission as if they have only just got in to the truck. As anyone who has been in that kind of situation knows, everyone always discusses the important stuff at the start of the journey, so it is clear that the scene has been poorly scripted.

Revealing: When James' craft touches down outside the Sheriff's office, the wires suspending it from above are visible.

Revealing: An obvious stunt double replaces Marc Singer when he kicks the sheriff's shotgun out of his hand, and also when the truck drives into the lake.

Visible crew/equipment: The boom mike is briefly visible at the top of the screen when the woman on the horse rides up to Mike and Kyle.

Visible crew/equipment: When Julie says 'We're gonna stand and fight' near the end of the episode, a boom mike briefly creeps into view at the top of the screen.

Revealing: When the two wildcats throw hand grenades at the Visitors, the grenades are obviously fake because the explosions do not occur at the same place as where the grenades land. The detonations have obviously been located in a safe place away from the actors.

Continuity: When Philip is first seen with the metal thing on his lens a buzzing sound is heard. Afterwards, no buzzing sound is heard.

Continuity: When Kyle is with Donovan in the warehouse shooting at Philip, you always hear a bang coming out of the machine gun but sometimes a fire blast is not seen.