CSI: Miami (2002) - 66 mistakes in entire show

Factual error: 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.

Other: Every time they use Nikon DSLR you see how it looks when you look inside camera's viewfinder. And it's wrong. Nikon viewfinders don't have 9 focus points (I've checked at www.dpreview.com). Almost every time they shoot photos ranging from 13 to 15. Biggest number they shot was 17. Sometimes they shoot 13, 14 and then goes 13 again. Numbers are wrong also because it should represent how many shots are left to take, not how many you have shot.

Factual error: Every time the investigators deal with IP-addresses, the addresses on display are impossible. Each of the four parts of an IP-address has to be between 0 and 255. This isn't equivalent to the movie-specific 555 area code for phone numbers - having an IP address outside that range is like having a phone number which includes the % symbol - it's just impossible.

Factual error: In episode "Burned," as the firemen are putting out the fire, the water heater explodes, becoming a flying projectile. But you can see that the pilot light is still lit. The fire department would have immediately had all the gas to the home turned off, and the pilot would have gone out.

Factual error: During many of the episodes, we often see an overhead shot one of the CSI agents in the Hummer speeding down the Miami (or Los Angeles, where it is filmed) highway systems to a crime scene or what not. If you pay close attention, there is almost never any other traffic on the highways besides them. Very unlikely if not impossible, especially in Miami (or Los Angeles).

Factual error: Calleigh Duquesne frequently wears completely inappropriate clothing throughout the whole series. She often wears blouses that are so low cut that the neckline is below the lower curve of her breasts. No officer of the court in the US would be allowed to dress this way. There is no grey area here, and this is not a character mistake - first time a CSI turned up at work dressed like that, she'd be sent home to change. Second time, she'd be on suspension until she agreed to change her dress standards. Also (and this regularly happens in CSI:NY as well) she is regularly wearing high heels - also a certain no-no for as CSI.

Continuity: In Episode 'You may now Kill the Bride', when Calligh and Ryan are in the lab discussing the diamond, Calligh takes her earring off, but when she says, "The molecular structure of carbon makes it one of the hardest surfaces on Earth", her earring is back on. Then she scratches the glass with the earring she took off.

Audio problem: In episode "Born to Kill" when Ryan and Natalia are talking about the ticket he gave the suspect, Natalia's mouth keeps moving long after the words stop being said.

Continuity: They pull a man out of the swamp who they believe is still alive, but not breathing, and they sit there pounding on his chest. Not only did they not check for a pulse to determine that chest compressions were necessary, but no one was giving mouth to mouth or doing rescue breathing.

Continuity: At the very beginning of the episode, when a man catches a fish from his boat, another man places his hand on his shoulder to congratulate him,in the next shot his hand is gone.

Other: In the flashbacks of the crime, the surviving toddler continually walks through the blood, making perfect little 'blood footprints' all over the house, and a trail leading into the back yard. Accompanying him walking around is a sound effect implying that the feet in the toddler's footed pj's are made of cloth...acting like a sponge...unfortunately, not only would the footprints not be perfect and long lasting, but the pj feet were plastic.

Revealing: While Horatio and Alexx are examining the prostitute's body, you can see the corpse breath in a side view

Revealing: The compound Heptan-2-one is mentioned several times in this episode. The actress concerned persists in pronouncing the last syllable 'one' as in the number 1, whereas its correct scientific pronounciation should be as in the word 'bone' ie. sounds like 'own'. Nitpicking certainly, but a dead giveaway to any viewer with a basic knowledge of chemistry.

Factual error: Using a Draeger tube to test for nitric acid fume, the instrument made a clicking sound. This device does not click. The bellows pump is squeezed drawing air through the tube. A reaction takes place between the air contaminant and the material in the tube causing a color change. The length of stain is proportional to the concentration.

Factual error: Nitric acid is a liquid and not a gas. The gaseous precurser is NO2 which combines with water forming nitric acid, HNO3. Neither causes instant death.

Revealing: Horatio writes the symbols for sulfuric acid, H2SO4, on a clear board. Both numbers should be subscripts but he writes the 4 as a large number, suggesting a lack of basic chemistry knowledge

Deliberate "mistake": In the episode "Bunk," a man goes in the house looking for his cat. When the cat releases the fumes, it jumps down, but when the man dies, the cat is nowhere to be found. The cat is not mentioned ever again in the episode either.

Continuity: The scissors are being profiled but as seen with last scissor coming in, it's discarded after only one cut of the tape. This is NOT conclusive, as the whole blade of the scissor has to be profiled, which means he has to cut the tape at least a few times, until he has covered the whole blade, section by section

Factual error: Iodine-131 does not decay to normal Iodine. It decays to a stable isotope of the noble gas Xenon.

Factual error: I-131 (or any radioactive material) "at the end of its half life" does not instantly become non-radioactive, as was depicted in this episode. Radioactive decay is a continuous process; the half-life has no "beginning", but tells you how much time after "now" for however much is there at any time "now" to be reduced to one half that amount. Wait enough half-lives and the amount will fall to an inconsequential amount, but one is never enough

Character mistake: Horatio twice reads an extract from a letter threatening the life of the poisoned woman. The first time, he reads, "If you ever try to contact us again we will kill you," and the second time, "If you ever try to contact me again I will kill you." A close up of the letter shows it to read, "If you ever try to contact me again i'll (sic) kill you".

Factual error: Firstly, I-131 has an eight day half life. It is thus impossible that she is poisoned on day 1 (a dose enough to kill her), and then the following day there is no detectable rad. reading at the source. The eight day half-life also comes into play with the hand that becomes "neutralized" to radioactivity. Secondly, the discussion re: alpha, beta, and gamma radiation is true, however if breathed/ingested, I'd sure rather it be a gamma emitter than an alpha emitter, as alphas will deposit more energy (this is contrary to what was stated).

Other: In the final scene, Belle says "Thank you" to Horatio, but the DVD subtitles say "I like you". (Region 2 UK DVD).

Continuity: At the beginning the media broadcasts reports about hurricane Andrew, but later into the episode,this changes to hurricane Anthony as the episode is titled.

Revealing: There is a dead (burnt) woman in the morgue. At the end of the episode, Alexx pulls her out of her vault for one last look. When you look at her neck, you will see a pulse.

Plot hole: The photographer who found the dead guy (Stalkerazzi) told Horatio that he was chasing a black Cadillac Escalade that was chasing the Stalkerazzi's car. He also said that he got stuck behind a truck and that when he finally caught up the Stalkerazzi was dead and there was no sign of the black Escalade. Throughout the rest of the episode nobody does any looking into the black Escalade, asks suspects if they own one or even mention it again. No investigation of the truck that the photographer got stuck behind was shown either. In the same episode Speed tells a cop, while in a tree looking into someone's yard, that they go in through windows if need be to close a case. This is totally inconsistent with the rest of the show and the law. They are always careful about getting search warrants and doing things by the book.

Factual error: In the scene in the lab where they notice the porn actress's wisdom teeth have not erupted yet, they show her lower jaw with the wisdom tooth just under the gum, but say it is 5 cm under the gum. I don't know about you but if my wisdom tooth was 5 centimetres under the gum, it would be hanging out the bottom of my jaw. (FYI, 5 cm is almost 2 inches.)

Other: When Valera hands Ryan the results from her comparison of the nanny and the baby the results list XY (male) for the sex chromosomes instead of XX (female).

Factual error: Season 3 - Episode 66 - "Game Over" They find a sticky substance which turns out to be a soft drink made with cane sugar rather than corn syrup. Ryan pronounces that no sodas are made in the US with cane sugar and they would have to be ordered from Mexico. The Dr. Pepper plant in Dublin, Texas makes its product with Imperial Cane Sugar year round and many brands (Coca-cola for one) produce limited quantities around Passover as corn syrup being a grain product is not considered "kosher for Passover" (it might have been exposed to leavening). While the show's premise that the drinker must be an aficionado still holds, he certainly wouldn't have to order them from outside the country as is stated.

Deliberate "mistake": Series 4 Episode 13 Silencer. When they are trying to find out who the blogger is, they back trace to the IP address the person is using, the IP address they find starts with 310, the highest number any octet of an IP address can be is 255.

Plot hole: Episode 419, "Driven". Delko pulls over Hayden early in the episode and questions him. Later on the shooter from the spa is found dead and he has glove markings on his arm. Delko tells Calleigh to compare the markings to the gloves he took off Hayden and they are a match. But Delko pulled Hayden over hours before he killed the shooter. If Delko had the glove in custody, how could Hayden have worn it during the killing?

Continuity: When Heratio and Delko are on the dock talking to the blond about "Diablo" on the close up shots you can see that there is a large yacht parked at the dock she is sitting on. When the camera switches to the shots from behind looking over the pool with her at the far end, the yacht is gone.

Continuity: Right at the beginning of the funeral ceremony, we see the prisoner exit the police car and he asks the officer to remove his handcuffs to go pay his last respects, in which the officer replies that he cannot do that. Only a second or two later, the prisoner can now be seen walking toward the coffin (not knowing there was a shooter hiding inside) and he suddenly is no longer handcuffed.

Factual error: In the episode originally aired on 10/24/05 entitled 'Under Suspicion' Walter Dresden's DNA was positively linked to a murder in Orlando. Even if the judge dismissed the case against him in Miami, he would have been transported to Orlando to stand trial for that crime, not simply released.

Plot hole: There is a large amount of blood found at Rachel Turner's apartment and it's determined to be Horatio's. He is subsequently arrested. Why wouldn't he be checked for a cut? To bleed that much would require a large cut and since it was only 24 hours it wouldn't have had time to heal, therefore proving that the blood although his had to be planted. That's too large an oversight by the police to just be a character mistake.

Factual error: Delko would not be able to work on the case, since he was present at the robbery and thus an eyewitness. An eyewitness who fired his gun at that. He would have been dismissed from the case.

Continuity: In Episode 4-12 "THE SCORE" When Frank is standing over the body of Paul Sanders and Alex is checking him out, as he talks to Heratio he has something on his right cheek that looks like a large pimple or covered bump. In the next scene when he is interviewing Heather Larkin in the police station there is nothing on his cheek.

Revealing: Season 4, episode 21: "Dead Air". At the start, when Horatio looks at the call details, it very clearly reads "no sim card inserted" at the top of the screen. Quite hard for the accidental recipient of the call to have a working phone without a sim card...

Continuity: In the first part of the flashback to the deliberate collision with Calleigh's Hummer, no piece of the pick-up grill stuck to the Hummer's rear end. But seconds later it appears.

Continuity: After Calleigh's Hummer is hit from the rear, it is shown going into the water with no visible damage to the front of the vehicle. After the first commercial break it is being pulled from the water with a dented and buckled hood.

Continuity: As the shot victim falls from the balcony and we see his approaching reflection in the silver plate on the outside cafe table as he falls, we then see a shot of the table from the side. The items on the table are all in different places.

Continuity: There is a scene where the recovered part of the pick-up's grill is being matched to the damaged pick-up. This is the pick-up that ran Calleigh off the road. In the flashback of the collision, the grill piece is a different shape and size.

Continuity: At the beginning of the episode, the bikers are approaching the crime scene to be, and you can see the sun low in the sky in the shot, casting long shadows to the right of the bikes. When they are a little closer to where the shooting will take place, suddenly it is high noon; for there are no shadows except directly underneath the motorcycles.

Continuity: At the end of the broadcast as Jake and Horatio converse in front of the police station. In the closer shots, they and the motorbike are the left of the entrance steps with a car parked on the right, then in the zoom-out shots they are on the right of those steps with a cop car parked on the left.

Continuity: In the episode "Going Under" when Horatio is speaking with Callie after the accident her hair is behind her shoulders. When the camera changes angle there is some hanging in front of her shoulders, then when it changes angle again her hair is back behind her shoulders.

Continuity: Throughout the second half of the broadcast, Calleigh's hair switches back and forth repeatedly between a very straight part toward her left side, and a part that curves toward the center of her forehead. It looks like she changes her hair comb every time she dons her lab jacket.

Factual error: When Eric and Ryan are talking about the motor oil and how the wear and tear on the engine make the motor oil unique to the bike. The oil left on the gun would not have matched the oil in the bike any longer since they were still being ridden and the engine would have still been depositing metal into the oil.

Continuity: During the part where Callie and Delko are in the open mausoleum area of the cemetery, Callie snaps a picture at one area of the mausoleum wall. If you look closely, the crypt says someone by the name of 'Thacker' is buried there. Callie then says that the faint woman's voice that had been picked up by the audio surveillance (placed in the cemetery for the storyline with the suspect burying the gold, then getting killed) had occurred about "100 feet" from the spot where she took the picture. However, later in the episode when flashbacks are used, we now see the suspect woman uttering the words that had been picked up on audio, and she is standing right next to the crypt where 'Thacker' is buried, not 100 feet away or somewhere further away in the mausoleum area.

Factual error: At the end of the episode when Caine and Delko discover a bomb in the SUV, Delko asks if they should try disarming it, to which Caine replies there isn't enough time. Caine gets in the vehicle and proceeds to drive it away with about three and a half minutes to go before the bomb detonates. We then see an arial overhead shot of Caine speeding down a freeway, during the daytime, with literally no traffic (not one car) around him. This is near impossible on even the least traveled Miami highways in the middle of the day.

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.

Other: When the guy's head is cut off, his arms are up in the air next to his head. Yet his head is sliced clean off while his arms remain intact. And they would not have gone slack and fallen down after his head was cut off because they are right next to his cheeks (and the car was moving way too fast to allow for that anyway).

Other: When Eric is shot in the head they show you in slow motion him going down, he was shot in the left back of the skull, their would have been some blood spatter on the car and there was none.

Continuity: The real estate mogul is shot on an upstairs balcony. He falls face first and flips over a rail with his head toward the house. He lands on his back on an ice sculpture. When he's shown, his head is facing away from the house. He would have to turn 180 degrees while falling to land in this position.

Revealing: In episode "Triple Threat": at the end of the episode when the triplets are being walked out of the building all in a row after being charged with murder, they have their hands behind their backs like they are in handcuffs. When Beth turns around to look at Noah, you see Ashley in front of her with her fingers laced together and no hand cuffs, getting into the van.

Continuity: When Eric is at the rehab center where the TV star was being treated, the camera zooms in from above. Seconds after his chat with the girl to whom the star had confessed murder, the camera zooms back out, but this time, the juices are rearranged, there are new white flowers by the tree on the right, the table is pulled back from the chair, the chairs are no longer right close together, there is a suspended piece of equipment above the table, and there is some funky doodad leaning up against the table that wasn't there before. The sun moved by at least a couple hours during their 30 second chat.

Continuity: When the TV star is killed he is wearing a white t-shirt with black lettering. As he is dragged to and placed in the trunk of the car it is still visible. When the CSIs move him from the trunk onto the gurney, there is no lettering on the t-shirt.

Continuity: In the beginning when Eric is taking the shoe print off the car door, you see him removing the silver sticky paper from the door first, then you see him starting the process when they start with the slide show of him collecting the evidence.

Visible crew/equipment: In the flashback of the murderer slamming the car door on the victim's neck and breaking it, we get a clear shot of the cameraman and his camera in the car door (CSI's favorite blooper).

Continuity: Episode "Just Murdered": When Horatio confronts the couple at the bank after the safe deposit box is opened, you can see that the wife has her earrings on. When they flash back to that scene later in the movie, she doesn't have them on. She shouldn't have them on since she hasn't gone to the lawyer and retrevied them yet. She shouldn't have them in the first scene.

Visible crew/equipment: When Horacio and Eric are talking in the CSI building corridor, notice the reflection of the overhead microphone on the left side mirror.

Other: In episode "Kill Switch" it states that Jason Billings died from a broken neck, it shows Tony Decker kicking him in the face snapping his neck. Jason then tries to claw his way up onto Tony's deck leaving the scratches and blood and getting the splinter under his nail. This wouldn't have been possible since he would have already been dead.

Continuity: "Born to Kill" from CBS.com on 6/10/07. The time sequence in the beginning is very screwy. The victim and her friend are partying inside and it is dark outside. The streetlights go out and the inside lights in the building go off. As the girls come out of the building, it is daytime. Seconds go by, then it is midday. As the girls talk to Mr. Biker/Murderer in the close-ups, the sun is in front of them and their butts are in the shade. In the zoom-out shots, their butts are in the direct sunshine.

Plot hole: In episode 6-4, Delko is rummaging in Speedle's locker. Why would Speedle still have a locker, considering he's been dead 3 years? Even if they couldn't allocate it to someone else, why are his personal effects (e.g. his wallet) still in there? Shouldn't these have been returned to his family?

Factual error: (Episode: Sun Block) At the beginning of the episode, all the pool patrons are watching an eclipse, the sky darkens and they watch as the moon passes in front of the sun. The process, from the moon first beginning to touch the sun's disc to total eclipse occurs in approximately one minute. It is impossible for an eclipse to happen that quickly; it would take at least an hour to complete the process shown.

Continuity: In Episode 6-1 "Dangerous Son" - In the beginning when the suspect is running from the house he has his hood on, when he jumps off the roof and falls on the canopy he has no hood on, then when he gets up his hood is back on.

Continuity: When Candace walks onto the pool deck Luke hugs her but he does not touch her face. When they play back the feed from his sunglass-camera. he does.