CSI: NY (2004) - 63 mistakes in entire show

Continuity: Episode 6-6, "It Happened To Me": when Hawkes talks to Stella at the end of the episode, he has both of his hands raised out in front of him. In the next shot, his left arm is down by his side, and he raises it again.

Revealing: Season 5, episode 18 "Point of No Return": When Danny fires at the bad guy, there are sparks coming from the metal pipes when his bullets hit them. One of the things causing the sparks burns too slowly, taking over a second before it fades out.

Other: Episode 5-19, "Communication Breakdown": When Mac, Stella, and Danny are trying to determine where the fired bullet entered the train car, none of them are wearing rubber gloves. But even though they're not handling any evidence, they're still processing a crime scene.

Audio problem: Season 5, episode 18 "Point of No Return": When Hawkes is talking to Mac about the fibers he found, there's a brief shot of his silhouette in which his lips don't move while talking.

Audio problem: Season 5, episode 17 "Green Piece": When Stella is typing on the Apple keyboard she hardly lifts her fingers from the keys, yet we hear a loud clicking sound. That type of keyboard doesn't make that kind of sound, unless you pound the keys with great force. Also, the clicking sounds don't match up with her keystrokes.

Factual error: Whenever someone uses an iPhone (which is the phone of choice on CSI:NY), the screen stays lit when talking on the phone. The iPhone has a sensor which dims the screen when you put it to your ear, but only if you're actually making a call.

Continuity: Season 5, episode 15 ("The Party's Over). After Mac talks to Dunbrook in the park, the latter walks away with a cup of coffee in his right hand. When the shot changes, his cup is instantly gone.

Factual error: Season 5, episode 23 "Greater Good": A guy runs over a little girl in 2007. A flashback of the crime scene has Stella showing Mac a photo of the dead girl on a digital camera. The screen info shows 2009/3/25. Two years in the future?

Audio problem: When Mac and co. enter the basement of the house in Queens (the one where the third woman was found) the record player lifts off its needle and moves to another spot on the record, cutting off the sound for a second. However, the music starts again slightly before the needle hits the record.

Continuity: When the girl first arrives at the party, she places her hand on the white car, right above the grille. Later, when Stella takes the photo, the hand print has moved over to the side.

Continuity: Stella prints the pictures of 6 suspects. Mac takes them all, holds one up and says : "That's the man we're looking for." But only 5 pictures comes out of the printer - and the picture of the suspect isn't among them. Mac holds up the picture of an black guy with afro hairdo - the suspect is white with rumpled black hair. Where does his picture come from ?

Continuity: In autopsy, Mac, Stella and Dr. Hawkes M.E. are examining a skeleton that was found on a bus. As Mac asks about cause of death, Sheldon points to a skull fracture that is evident above the skeleton's left eye, a fracture that wasn't there when the skeleton was first discovered sitting in the back of the bus.

Visible crew/equipment: At the beginning when the robot is lifting fingerprints from the suitcase, you can see a person walking around in the background-something not likely when there is a bomb threat.

Factual error: In the episode Recycling the woman with the knitting needle stated that she knits her dog things like the blanket he is sitting on. The blanket (a granny square blanket) is a crocheted blanket not knitted.

Continuity: At the beginning of the episode when Mac & Stella first look in the box at the beach, Lucas' head is at the back right corner of the box with a leg wedged from the back left to the back right corner and the back quite uppermost. When they open the box in the lab and go to remove it with the doctor, the head is in the front right corner with arms and legs visible uppermost like the body has been rotated, but it would not have been touched or removed from the box by that point. The second arrangement of the body is shown in the flashbacks throughout the episode.

Plot hole: The CSIs catch a murder suspect putting down a drink can when reviewing security footage of a robbery, and immediately realise they didn't see it at the scene so assume one of the first cops on the scene must have removed it. Thing is though, the murderers shot out the security camera before the actual shooting occurred, meaning there was loads of time off-camera for the killers to take the can with them, but the CSIs never even consider this - they jump to the conclusion a cop took it even though there's no actual evidence for that.

Character mistake: In the morgue, Stella initially identifies Gilbert Novotny as "George Novotny", however, correctly identifies him later in the scene. He is referred to as Gilbert through remainder of episode.

Factual error: They are suppose to be in Yankee Stadium investigating the death of the man they found in his truck. But they are not in Yankee Stadium, the color and configuration of the seats are not correct, they are in the L.A. Coliseum.

Factual error: The plot is about a mosquito who stung the murderer. Although Gary Sinise mentions (correctly) that only female mosquitoes bite, the one caught alive on the table is a male mosquito (look at its antennae). All other mosquitoes used in the episode are female.

Continuity: When Joel is shot at the poker game, the gunshot leaves a gaping hole in the door. Later, when Mac and Stella return to the crime scene, the hole is gone. The door color also changes from a dull blue to bright blue.

Revealing: When Messer is trapped in Mr Hudson's safe, the newspaper clippings he pulls out from the drawer show obvious Latin dummy text in the articles, while the headlines are in English.

Continuity: When Danny finally gets out of the panic room and Jerry throws him the phone to call Stella, the phone disappears from Danny's hand and then reappears in subsequent shots.

Other: In the guest star credits, Shelly Cole's given name is misspelled "Sherry."

Factual error: 2-20 Run Silent, Run Deep - They are suppose to be in Giants Stadium in NJ, but you can tell by the stadium configuration and color of the seats that they are in the L.A. Coliseum.

Character mistake: While investigating Corporal Price's death, Danny comments that Price was "found dead at midnight." Price was found the following morning; Danny should have said Price died at midnight.

Other: When Mac is reviewing the fact that the suspect has been researching his background, it displays a US Military separation notice on screen. The word 'separation' is misspelled as seperation, in caps.

Factual error: when Mac Taylor's ID card from the Marine Corps is being shown, there are two unintentional mistakes and one probably intentional. First, the design of the ID card in no way resembles an actual DoD issued military ID, but this was probably an intentional mistake by the creators of the show. The picture on the ID however, has two unintentional mistakes. First, Marines are never photographed in their dress blues for official purposes; Mac would have been in cammies or service dress charlies for the photograph. Second, Mac is revealed in several episodes to have been an officer, yet he is shown wearing the dress blues of an enlisted man.

Factual error: Lessing is said to have tried to enter the Marine Corps three times but failed the psych test; no psych tests are given when entering the Marine Corps.

Other: The blond dead victim blinks her eyes when the CSI agents are checking her body. It is right after the CSI says something about her lividity.

Factual error: Season 3, episode 49 (Not What It Looks Like). Breaking glass with sound is possible, but would not work as depicted in the episode. First, in order to break the glass, you have to force the glass to vibrate at its natural frequency - that is, the frequency at which it would vibrate if it were tapped. Each piece of glass has its own natural frequency, depending on a range of factors including size, chemical makeup, shape, hardness, and manufacturing methods. No single frequency would shatter all the glass in the store at the same time. Finally, in order to break the glass the piece has to be closed-ended. You can't shatter a plate of glass with sound (nowhere for the sound waves to resonate). Please see http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/feb98/887203231.Ph.r.html

Factual error: Danny explains how the glass was broken using ultrasound waves to hit the glass at their resonant frequency. He explains it could be done using a mp3-file and a mp3-player. As mp3-players are designed for the human ear, the upper frequency limit is around 20 khz, far too low to produce a sound capable of shattering glass.

Revealing: When the three thieves destroy the jewelry cases, the case in the middle of the room doesn't shatter.

Factual error: Season 3 Episode 54 (Murder Sings The Blues). Several police and crime lab personnel are in the train car looking at the dead girl and discussing the possibility that this death could be the result of a bio-hazard or chemical hazard. Later in the episode, ebola and anthrax were discussed. These are level 3/4 hazards which require Hazmat suits and oxygen supplies. At the very least, there should have been very serious access control to the scene. None of them are wearing any type of protective gear except rubber gloves, and there is nothing more than standard crime scene access control. Contrast this with a scene later in the same episode where 2 characters in the lab are wearing respirators when dealing with the dust and other stuff from vacuum cleaning system. If the CSI team or the police really suspected that there was a biohazard or dangerous chemical agent present at the crime scene, then their behaviour was quite cavalier under the circumstances.

Plot hole: In episode "And Here's To You, Mrs. Azrael": They state that the heart monitor on "Nicole" never showed any movement at all as she was being smothered, because the killer swapped it out and put it on herself. When Mrs. Rollins was smothering her daughter thinking it was Nicole, her heart rate would have raced and her blood pressure would have gone up a little as she strained to hold the bag over her face. The monitor would have picked that up.

Continuity: Season 3, Episode 11 (Raising Shane) Just as Casey is caught we see Detective Flack tackle him to the ground. The moment before Danny jumps on top of Casey we see that he is lying on his side. Yet when the camera changes position he is lying on his front.

Plot hole: In episode "Silent Night": When the mother checks on the baby in the first scene, you see the killer knock over the snow globe. The mother wouldn't have heard it since she was deaf, but she would have felt the vibration on the hardwood floor from the heavy object hitting the floor.

Audio problem: During the sequence where Lindsay is telling them about the tape with the lipstick on it, they show a man tying up a woman. You hear the sounds a woman would make if she was muffled by a gag (tape) on her mouth as she's being tied/struggling throughout the scene, but her mouth doesn't get taped until the end of the scene.

Continuity: The first time Mac tests the cleaned up blood on the floor, it shows positive with Luminol. However in the flashback scene with Lindsay, the Luminol is not showing up.

Continuity: In episode "Some Buried Bones": At the end when Reed is hugging Mac, Reed's arms go from being low across Mac's arms to around his shoulders between shots.

Character mistake: As Peyton is examining the body and reporting her findings to Danny at the beginning of the episode, Mac picks up a credit card he deducts was used to open the door, but he isn't wearing gloves; this would compromise the evidence even if by holding it by the edges he preserved the prints.

Continuity: When Adam is taking blood from Stella for her HIV test, the tourniquet on her left arm moves from the arm to the table and back to the arm as she gets up to leave.

Plot hole: The coroner found the ticket stub in the throat of the guy whose tongue was cut out, he died in the ER. The ER staff would have have found the ticket stub while trying to save his life. With the tongue being cut out they would have opened up his mouth to stop the bleeding.

Continuity: In Episode 4-03 You Only Die Once In the beginning of the episode when Flack calls in the address of the apartment he calls in the address of 260 W 72nd Street, however, when the burglar is shown repelling down the side of the building the address on the front of the building is 535.

Plot hole: In Episode 4-4, "Times Up," it is stated that Kevin Murray will be killed at 9:45. When Mac is standing over the dead body, he looks at his watch. It is 9:45 and he says, "Right on time." Unless Mac was standing on the sidewalk when he flew out of the window, he actually would have died earlier, since it would have taken time for the police to be called and arrive on scene.

Factual error: "The Thing About Heroes" When Mac has a flashback to an incident when he was 14 years old (in the 1970s) and gives the money to Bobby Toole the twenty-dollar bills all have the large 20 on the back side. This was not issued until 2004.

Continuity: When Flack, Lindsay, and Stella go to Kim Wey Imports, it's bright daylight out. But when Flack chases Wey out of the warehouse, the sky has suddenly become pitch black. They were only inside for a few minutes, so it shouldn't have been that dark.

Audio problem: When Stella sprays Felix's chestnut cart with Luminol, she visibly stops, but the sound of the spraying continues.

Continuity: In Episode "Happily Never After": In the opening when the CSI team is looking at the puncture wound of Fiona Chisolm, there is no blood coming from the wound. It is actually mentioned that there is no blood. Then it is determined that she was dead for about 6 hours, but now there is an L-shaped blood drip pattern to the chest wound.

Continuity: When Mac chases Suspect X into the construction site, X takes cover behind a pillar and fires her gun at Mac with one hand. In the next shot she's suddenly out in the open, holding her gun with two hands.

Plot hole: In the episode "Right Next Door," Mac was showing the air duct and saying that the fire would have traveled down the vent to the vacant apartment. The vent was shiny and new looking when it should have been filled with black soot with the amount of fire that traveled down it.

Continuity: Episode 19 - Personal Foul; Lindsay is going through the cheerleaders' photos to find a biometric match of the heavier woman, and she picks a head shot of a blond cheerleader. She removes it from the pile to scan it, seeing through the back, we can see what the actual picture looks like. It is a close up picture of a woman wearing big sunglasses. When the scan is complete, it is revealed as the original cheerleader photo.

Continuity: When Rikki Sandoval offers Danny the bowl of sugar, Danny takes the top off with his right hand. In the following shot, his hand is down by his side and the jar top is back on the jar.

Factual error: When Mac is held hostage until he can prove that the bank robber did not shoot the manager, he asks for a portable CT machine to be delivered. CT stands for computed tomography which is a machine that takes slice pictures of the body and puts them together to form a whole image. This is why a CT machine has a tube like quality to it, so it can take slice-like pictures around the body. When it arrives the machine is not a CT at all, but an ultrasound. This is made obvious when Mac uses the transducer probe (wand-like attachment) to scan the body. Anyone who has had any of these procedures done, or has seen them in TV shows, or knows how to search images on the internet can see the difference between these two very different machines.

Continuity: When they are cutting the tape from the woman found tied to a chair and shot, they cut the tape around her feet and remove then bag it, yet when they start cutting the tape on her hands a few seconds later the woman's feet are taped together again.

Continuity: when the bank manager's wife is being prepared for autopsy, Sid begins by taking pictures of the wife. In these shots you can see her wrists and ankles are bound with tape. First he cuts off the tape on the ankles and places it in the evidence envelope with Danny and Lindsay. Next he begins to cut the tape from the wrists. As he is doing so, the next shot cuts to a full body view of the wife in which she has the tape back on her ankles again.

Continuity: Season 5, episode 15 "The Party's Over": An assistant shows Craig T Nelson and Gary Sinise a mockup of a New York Ledger news page, with a photo of an NYPD officer and a headline that reads: line 1 - "NY's", line 2 - "Finest take", line 3 - "A break". When Sinise takes the photo and puts it on the desk a few seconds later, the text layout is on 2 lines instead of 3.

Factual error: The episode "Jahrzeit" has a character in it called Klaus Braun ("Braun" being the German word for "brown"). However, all of the characters pronounce his surname wrong, saying the "au" like the "or" in "bored", not the proper German pronunciation, which would in fact, be the same as the English meaning, "Brown". Other German character's names were pronounced correctly, and surely Klaus/Abraham would object to having his name pronounced incorrectly.

Plot hole: All the victims were supposedly killed using thalium-201 - a radioactive isotope with a half-life of just 72 hours. e.g.: In the space of two months there would be 10 nanograms for every gram applied to the source of the radiation poisoning (i.e the book) - not enough to make Sid ill without making the perp very ill. He would have had a much higher dose than anyone infected.

Continuity: Season 5, episode 4, "Sex, Lies & Silicone": After Hawkes pats his old friend on the shoulder with the newspaper in front of the hotdog stall, there is a brief shot in which Hawkes is empty handed. In the next shot he's holding the newspaper again.

Plot hole: At the end of the episode, Adam and Stella are checking how many others there are bearing the same name in a government database. "Stella Bonasera" gives one result, being the Bonasera character. A search for "Sid Hammerback" also gives one result, a 90 year old woman (the characters say it has to be his mother). But Sid himself should have shown up too, with the search yielding two results, not just one.

Revealing: Season 5, episode 8, "My Name is Mac Taylor": When the killer sets himself on fire, he's not wearing any gloves. In the next shot he is, to protect the stuntman from the flames.

Revealing: At the end of the episode, Jamie Sunderland receives a message from her father to not look back. The closeup on the phone's display shows that the phone is offline and it is visible that the message is in fact a wallpaper.

Audio problem: When Sid hands Mac the test tube with the metal splinter, Mac says "Looks metallic". There is a full frontal shot of Mac's face, and his mouth doesn't move.