Navy NCIS: Naval Criminal Investigative Service (2003) - 34 mistakes in entire show

Continuity: 5-4: Identity Crisis. When Ziva is speaking with McGee her lapel changes from being turned up and laying down.

Plot hole: Season 6, episode 8 ("Cloak"). Ziva and Tony enter the secure facility by entering a pass code they obtained by watching the guards enter it previously. Once inside, they open another door using a pass code. How did they know that code? It would make no sense to have both locks use the same code, rendering the second door useless.

Plot hole: Season 6, episode 8 ("Cloak"). When Ziva and Tony take the elevator two floors down this takes a full minute. When in a hurry for a call it speeds down, yet for this conversation it (conveniently) took a minute.

Other: Season 5, Episode 12, "Stakeout": The picture on McGee's camera phone is just wrong. It shows not just the man in front of him, but it also shows a hand, holding a camera phone - McGee's camera phone. In other words, the phone is showing a picture of itself and the man, instead of just the man.

Continuity: While Tony and Ziva are outside Ziva's apartment eating pizza, Ziva is eating the pizza in one shot with the slice in the shot, in the shot directly before this and directly after, the pizza is no where to be found and she is no longer chewing.

Continuity: Episode "Heartland": In the first five minutes of the show, after the guys are beaten up in the alley, when the black guy is laid down on the ground there is a blood stain on the wall, behind where he was standing. When the other guys go to the white guy's aid the blood stain is gone, for about 3-4 shots. When the NCIS team is there gathering evidence the blood is back on the wall.

Plot hole: Towards the end of the episode, whilst agents Gibbs and Todd are in a toilet cubicle talking, a reporter convulses. People, including the Secret Service, rush to his side. In view of the previous death of the ball carrier, there is no way the Secret Service would leave the President unprotected.

Continuity: Agent Todd is standing there coat open, hands in her pockets on Air Force One watching Gibbs walk away when the bad guy who is a reporter (Leonard) comes up to her and comments "Loosening your dress code Kate". When she turns around to indicate that he should return to the press section her coat is now seen to be buttoned up.

Deliberate "mistake": After the bad guy obtains a weapon from the armory on Air Force One, he pushes the door shut. It is heard to latch correctly, but a few seconds later when Special Agent Gibbs comes, the door is now seen to be slightly ajar.

Deliberate "mistake": Fornell doesn't recognize Gibbs, but subsequent episodes establish they have a long history together.

Factual error: Air Force One landed in Wichita, Kansas. The local coroner claimed jurisdiction for Wichita County. The city of Wichita, Kansas is in Sedgwick County, in southern Kansas. Wichita County, Kansas is in western Kansas, about 250 miles from the city of Wichita.

Factual error: The episode takes place on the Destroyer DD 964 U.S.S. Paul F. Foster, but every time the ship is shown sailing past the camera you see the number 51 on the side. This is the number of the U.S.S. Arleigh Burke, a DDG not even the same class of ship.

Continuity: In one scene, McGee asks DiNozzo what Abby looks like. But jut a few minutes earlier, McGee saw her when Gibbs and his team videoconferenced with her.

Other: Tony, the self confessed film buff, had not seen Shane or heard of Alan Ladd when talking about drinking sarsaparilla.

Continuity: In the scene where Gibbs' phone breaks, and he tells McGee to "reboot" it, Tony is in the back, getting a phone out of the cabinet. He starts to give the phone to McGee. The next shot, the cabinet opens again, and Tony pulls out the phone again and gives it to McGee.

Factual error: Obviously written to make the story interesting, but Gibbs says that the first criminal caught by DNA was a Mafia don in Sicily. Well as anyone interested in Forensics knows it was Colin Pitchfork in England, see under 'cases'.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Tony approaches the Mallard residence by car for the first time, there is a stage light, complete with filter(?) on the balcony.

Character mistake: When Kate mentions James Bond, and DiNozzo lists the actors who have played him, he forgets Timothy Dalton. As a self-proclaimed film buff, that's not a mistake he would make.

Character mistake: In one scene, Jenny refers to "the former Czech Republic." That is the state's current name; it was formerly a part of Czechoslovakia.

Continuity: In the scene where Chip first brings the evidence to Abby (after getting it from Mr. Palmer), in one shot, her spiderweb tattoo is on the right side of her neck, and Chip is standing to her right. In the next shot, her tattoo is on the left side of her neck, as it normally is, and Chip is standing to her left.

Continuity: In the episode "Untouchable" (Season 3, episode 20), the camera pans across a line of several anime plushies. When the shot then goes wide, several of the plushies have either been re-arranged or removed completely, including a pink plush and the Kyogre plush. It also seems as though there are two Miroku plushies in the scene as well, one near the middle and one off to the side of the left pillow.

Revealing: When DiNozzo is watching the ship through the binoculars at the beginning, the film is run in reverse. The sailor smoking on the deck is the giveaway, as the smoke he's blowing is going into his mouth.

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Gibbs and Ziva are in the "safehouse" Ziva set up for Ari, a crew member and his camera are seen on the left of the screen, right before Gibbs climbs the ladder to remove the hidden camera spying on them.

Continuity: When McGee shows Abby the video, the first time it starts at 0:38, and when he shows it again it starts from 0:50.

Revealing: When Ducky and Gibbs are in the morgue examining the body of the girl found in the hotel, the camera cuts for a few seconds to the girl lying on the slab. During that shot, you can see her neck moving to her pulse (just after Ducky says, "There's some bruising on the sternum").

Continuity: When Gibbs and the team meet the sheriff and ask to be shown the crime scene, he states that it was in the Edenvale motel room 8. In the opening scene the door that the gentleman knocked on and subsequently got his feet covered in blood from the body bleeding out was room 1.

Continuity: When Abby is talking to Gibbs about getting a tattoo, he goes from looking at her computer screen to her in between shots. There's a straight cut, so there was no time for him to turn his head.

Continuity: In the Episode "Sharif Returns" When Ducky shows Gibbs the eye in the gladd vial, it alternates between being completely submerged in the fluid to sticking out the top.

Factual error: The season 5 episode "Designated Target" deals with the murder of a Navy admiral and the cab driver transporting him through Rock Creek Park in Washington, DC. Late in the episode, the investigators try to get a lead on another cab driver by tapping into the records from taxi meters. The problem is, DC cabs don't yet have meters. Congress banned them in 1933, but legislation passed this year now gives the DC government authority to install meters. And in fact, just days before this episode aired in Nov 2007, DC's mayor announced plans to switch from the zone system to meters by April 2008.

Continuity: "Stakeout": When he hands Tony the autopsy report, Ducky has hair falling over his forehead, then combed back, then over his forehead again repeatedly from shot to shot.

Continuity: While Franks and Gibbs are talking in the diner, Franks' hair goes from being swept back to hanging over his forehead throughout the scene.

Continuity: Near the end, several of the items on Ziva's desk change orientation from one shot to the next.

Character mistake: McGee seeks Director Vance's permission to hack into the Sea Hawk's computer system. He says that in the past four months, he hasn't worked any crime scenes, etc. This is incorrect, as near the start of the episode, he and Ziva go to an officer's home to advise his wife that he is missing. They discover her murdered and then the team, including McGee, are working the crime scene.

Continuity: When NCIS catches the killer, the way he holds a bomb detonator changes. In some shots, he holds it with all five fingers, and in others he holds it with his middle two fingers and thumb, with his index and pinky fingers extended.