The Outer Limits (1963) - 55 mistakes in entire show

Visible crew/equipment: As the energy being moves down the city sidewalk, we see its shadow on the concrete. Right beside that, however, we can also see the distinctly-shaped shadow of the camera.

Visible crew/equipment: When Stanley levitates the meteor with his brain power, the wires that actually lift the rock are very easy to spot at the top of the screen.

Revealing: In this episode's present-day 1963, the scientists view film footage said to have been taken "yesterday." But the rather obvious crowd scene stock footage is ten years old, featuring cars and clothing no newer than 1953.

Revealing: In the bakery, Will plays a lively tune on the concertina - without touching any of the button-keys necessary to play the notes.

Continuity: The window in the chamber door changes its size between shots. At first, we can see just Gwyllm's head. But then the window somehow grows so that his head and shoulders are visible. When the window gets smaller again, only part of his head is visible.

Visible crew/equipment: As the ship lands in the beginning, the wire supporting the model is visible at the top of the screen.

Plot hole: Andro has memorized "every detail" of Cabot Jr.'s life, including his mother's name, Noel. Yet when he travels to the past, meets Noel and learns her name, he still mistakes Cabot Sr. for Cabot Jr., who isn't born yet. Having memorized all those details, he would have known the moment he met her that Noel was Jr.'s mother. Andro's confusion makes no sense.

Revealing: When the alien posing as a human is exposed, the OBIT screen shows his "true" alien form while he continues to appear human to the naked eye. The actor in alien costume on the screen copies Jeff Corey's movements, but at one point rather badly shatters the illusion by forgetting to raise his arms when Corey does.

Continuity: When the lab equipment shorts out after the earthquake, the unconscious Major Brothers is lying with his head propped up against the wall. But when Hamilton reaches him in the next shot, he's suddenly lying flat and is nowhere near the wall.

Factual error: When the energy monster kills his entire research staff by stopping their hearts, Dr. Block brings them all back to life (with their minds and personalities intact) by installing pacemakers. But when the heart stops functioning, brain death occurs within minutes. For this to work, he'd not only have to operate on several people simultaneously, he'd also have to be the fastest heart surgeon on Earth.

Continuity: When Joey turns off the bathtub tap, we can see that the water is no longer flowing. But the sound of running water continues. And a few shots later, the water is flowing once more, even though Joey hasn't gone near the tub again.

Continuity: When Phobos sets up the time converter, the grid on his large round scope has a diamond-shaped pattern. But when we see it from his point of view, the grid comprises perfect squares instead, and contains numbers that weren't there before.

Continuity: Harvey peeks into the small hole in the box using his right eye. On the first view from inside the box, a right eye is indeed looking in. But when the monster appears, a left eye is peering through the hole. The shot cuts immediately back to Harvey, who still has his right eye pressed to the opening.

Factual error: The General brandishes a six-shooter pistol with an enormous silencer attached to it. He's a career military guy who should definitely know better, so he gets a failing grade in Basic Weaponry 101. Silencers don't work on revolvers.

Revealing: The injured Spain falls and tries to crawl away from the alien, leaving handprints in the dust on the floor. Just to his left, you can see several handprints already on the floor from previous takes.

Continuity: In the lab, the alien's arms change positions instantaneously between shots.

Visible crew/equipment: While alien reports to home planet, the shadow of the boom mic passes overhead.

Continuity: The alien's torn spacesuit sleeve somehow mends itself, but then is torn again a few shots later.

Continuity: The cloth pillows stabilizing the moonstone on the lab counter change positions several times between takes.

Continuity: Dr. Brice's name tag is partially tucked under her collar when she's inside the lab. When she walks into the corridor, the tag has shifted position and is outside the collar. Later, back in the lab, the tag keeps changing from over to under her collar repeatedly.

Continuity: General Stocker falls into a lunar quicksand pit and starts to sink. One arm disappears beneath the sand, but in the next shot, both his arms are outstretched and waving for help.

Continuity: In the lab, Anderson collapses with his arms crossed above his head. When the shot cuts, his arms are suddenly uncrossed.

Revealing: The actress is playing chord progressions on the piano. As the camera starts to pan away, she takes her hands off the keys entirely - but the piano chords continue to play.

Factual error: Mace's chest camera sends images from impossible angles - including several that include Mace himself. At the end, his superiors watch him from a camera that's obviously mounted in a tree and not on his person. Yet when Mace smashes his chest camera, the transmission goes dead anyway.

Continuity: After running through the woods getting soaked by pouring rain, Casha arrives on Kollos' doorstep with her hair neatly coiffed and perfectly dry. In fact, within minutes of coming in out of the downpour, Casha, Leonora and Tone all have completely dry hair and clothes.

Character mistake: Dr. Kagan, who's a scientist and should definitely know better, points to Earth's solar system on the chart and calls it "our galaxy." This is roughly the equivalent of mistaking a dot this size [.] for the entirety of North America.

Visible crew/equipment: Barton is terrified by a plant-like alien floating outside his spaceship window. The Venusian critter might be a heck of a lot scarier if it bore less resemblance to a furry stalk of celery - and if only its puppet strings weren't showing.

Factual error: Barton's ship, we're told, has been designed only to orbit Venus, not land there. Yet he somehow lands anyway - on a planet with atmospheric pressure and broiling temperatures that should have crushed and incinerated him instantly.

Revealing: This 1964 episode is supposed to take place in its own near-future (the late 1960s). But some of the shots in the beginning reveal the use of outdated stock footage. During the parade, there's a close-up of a 48-star US flag, a relic even in '64, as Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th states in 1959. Old flags are supposed to be burned, and wouldn't have been used for civic events such as ticker-tape parades.

Factual error: While orbiting Venus, Barton receives instant responses to his radio communications with Earth. At that distance, there'd be a considerable transmission delay: at least 1-2 hours.

Revealing: Mismatched stock footage puts the Venus-bound Barton in four different spaceships during his journey. We see brief shots of a Vanguard rocket launch, an Atlas missile, a V-2 rocket sequence, and finally, special effects shots of the ship borrowed from the 1950s SF series "Men Into Space." Not one of these vehicles even remotely resembles any of the others.

Continuity: When Dr. Stone's assistant helps him up from the floor, there's a lopsided, circular diagram drawn on the chalkboard behind them. One shot later, the diagram has changed into a perfectly round circle and has moved itself several inches higher on the board.

Plot hole: Eck gives Dr. Stone one of his eyes so the scientist can create a lens to improve the alien's vision. At the end, Stone hands Eck the lens, but not the eye. When Eck puts on the lens, his missing eye reappears out of nowhere.

Continuity: Eck tears a leaf from Stone's notebook. But the close-up insert of the page and the following shot of it being torn out reveal two completely different sheets of paper. The first has only a brief list of four names and addresses. The second is covered with handwritten notes. They don't match, yet they're supposed to be the same page.

Continuity: At the end, the unconscious Lt. Branch changes position on the floor between takes.

Factual error: Someone in the set decorating department must have failed first-year Spanish. The name of the apartment complex (Spanish for "The Flowers") is prominently displayed over the archway, but has both words misspelled, reading "Los Floras." It should be "Las Flores."

Visible crew/equipment: After Roy forces Peter to drink the formula, the boom shadow makes a very intrusive appearance on the wall above them.

Continuity: Trent and the Kiban agent crash through a glass window during their fight in the attic. After Constanza pulls off the alien's medallion and disintegrates him, Trent, who is bent backward at the waist over the windowsill, has instantly moved between takes to a position much farther out onto the ledge.

Continuity: Trent pushes three of the hand-shaped computer's fingers back as far as they will go, as it instructs him to do. In one brief shot after this, the fingers have returned to their normal position. One shot later, they're pushed back again.

Continuity: Andy's car crashes into a boulder in the beginning and stalls. But when he gets the engine started and drives away at the end, there's no damage at all to the front end of the car.

Visible crew/equipment: A glass shield used to protect the camera from a styrofoam rock slide shows us the ghostly reflections of several film crew members, including one wearing an enormous "10-gallon" cowboy hat.

Continuity: From the Mars rocket's cockpit, Boomer hears Thomas scream once, shouts, "I'm coming!" and races out. When Earth Command hears this on delayed radio transmission 3.5 minutes later (it would take much longer than that from Mars, by the way), there's added dialogue, and this time Boomer never says "I'm coming." We also hear Thomas scream twice instead of just once.

Deliberate "mistake": Though by 1964 it was already suspected (and later confirmed by Mariner IV) that Mars has an atmosphere humans can't breathe and temperatures too low for humans to tolerate, Merritt and his crew are here exploring the planet sans spacesuits. This was "fudged" because space helmets A)are expensive, B)reflect cameras, and most importantly, C)obscure the actors' faces.

Visible crew/equipment: During Ellis and Cutler's conversation in the courthouse foyer, the boom shadow makes two appearances: once over Ellis' shoulder when they start across the hall, and again over the elevator doors.

Visible crew/equipment: As Hadley stands near the lockers, talking to Larkin and packing, the boom shadow dips into the shot over his head.

Visible crew/equipment: When the black Ford pulls up to Minns' apartment building and Ballard gets out, several studio lights and reflectors are mirrored in the car's shiny surface.

Continuity: Ballard reports that 6 bullets were fired at Minns. He's a trained investigator, but he apparently can't count as well as the viewers can. We saw his men fire at Minns - 7 times.

Visible crew/equipment: When Minns pulls up to get Johnny, the entire camera crew and several lights are reflected in the side panels of his station wagon.

Factual error: Outside the warehouse, one of Ballard's men is talking on a car phone. We're not sure who he could connect with, though. The car has no mobile transmission antenna, and in the 60s, it would have needed a very large one.

Revealing: This episode's futuristic video-phones seem to be a production afterthought not in the original script. Consequently, Mrs. James talks to her husband's clone on the phone, but doesn't seem to see him on the screen. She tells James, "He sounded like you," and goes on about his voice, but never mentions his appearance. Later, her reaction to seeing both of them together indicates she's never seen the duplicate before - even though she has, on the video-phone.

Continuity: In the scene after the second crash, when the pilot and his wife "borrow" the jeep to return to the base, the shot is flipped, reversing the positions of the husband and wife in a mirror image of the real vehicle, placing the "driver" in the passenger position and the spare tire, which should be on the near side, is now on the far side. In the next shot, as the vehicle nears the base, everything suddenly resumes the correct perspective.

Revealing: Janie is frozen in place on her tricycle, but the 5-year-old actress has a hard time holding still. She's visibly fidgeting. And when a freeze-frame of her is used for close-ups, there's a black blotch on the film over her neck.

Deliberate "mistake": Amanda survives a plane crash into the ocean, hurricane winds in a life raft, then experimentation and attacks by giant microbes inside the alien probe. Yet when she and the others are rescued at the end, not one strand of hair is loose in her 1960s "beehive" hairdo.

Continuity: When she's inside the giant test tube, Amanda raises her arms over her head. In the very next shot, with no time for her to have moved that fast, her arms are straight down and held rigidly at her sides.

Revealing: Indicative of previous takes, the floor inside the alien probe already has several human footprints all over it before the characters exit their life boat and walk on it.