Best action TV plot holes of all time

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Secret Invasion picture

Season 1 generally

Plot hole: The Skrull base is inside an abandoned nuclear power plant with enough radioactivity to force any human (like, say, Nick Fury) to constantly pop iodine pills to fight the symptoms of a poisoning that would kill them in less than half an hour. Despite that, Skrulls also detain prisoners, for years in some cases, in rudimentary shackles without any sort of shield or protection against the radiation.

Sammo

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Suggested correction: Iodine pills don't fight the symptoms of radiation poisoning; they prevent the body from absorbing radioactive iodine. It does not protect from exposure to radiation; it won't save you from it. Secondly, it's all an act by Gi'Ah posing as Fury anyway. Thirdly, they are in the reactor control room where Gravik says the radiation is higher. The prisoners are in a low radiation room, which could be extra shielded from radiation. It could also be that the prisoners are fed iodine to block radioactive iodine.

lionhead

We can make up if we want that there's a special, super-secret anti-radiation serum and/or super-effective shielding, helping humans even during an exposure that lasts years (a decade in the case of Rhodey!), but there has to be something in the actual visuals that remotely hints at it. It's hard to headcanon that the dingy area of the plant where they are racked together, strapped to bed nets behind tarps, can be "low radiation", or that they are given anything to counter it. In particular, in the ending, the rescued people leisurely walk around the plant with zero radiation protection, even casually in the open yard where "Fury's" Geiger counter was going mad earlier. And the radiation was not something induced by the Skrulls that just ended when the baddie died. Not only is there no techno-babble justification (one could argue it's simply a pedantic detail not unlike the lack of hair growth or muscle atrophy), there's a direct flagrant contradiction in how the environment of the location - which is the only reason why they picked that site as a base - is deadly to humans only to a dramatic degree only when it's convenient.

Sammo

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The Flash picture

Revenge of the Rogues - S1-E10

Plot hole: During the fight at sundown, Cold gets a hit on Flash and he goes down. Eddie takes a shield and goes to help. But Flash was in the middle of the street with no obstacles around, and it's implausible that Eddie could have gotten to him without Cold or Heat seeing him.

Knever

More The Flash plot holes
GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka picture

Show generally

Plot hole: During the episode "Superstition", Onizuka thinks he has cancer because the magnetic pain-pads he was wearing created strange blobs in the X-Ray he has taken. However, given the fact that the X-Ray was so strange, doctors would have given him a complete physical, and noticed the pads much sooner. Here, they literally just assume he has tumors, and fail to ever take notice of the pads. Simply impossible, given the gravity of the situation. (Obviously, this is to pay off at the very end of the episode.)

More GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka plot holes
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Suggested correction: He recognized that there were two Tony Starks in the lobby by the smell of their colognes, and combined with all the other unusual shenanigans going on, he correctly deduced the Avengers travelled through time, though he incorrectly thought it was to prevent his ascendancy.

Phaneron

How exactly do you distinguish the smell of cologne as belonging to two separate people? But besides that, it's pretty wild to jump to a conclusion about time travel when it could be that someone else happens to be wearing Axe.

auroraSLAP

I'm sure he simply recognized his voice.

lionhead

More Loki plot holes
Mission: Impossible picture

Holograms - S1-E3

Plot hole: The mysterious neurosurgeon Dr. Quinn was mentioned by the fake Myles Taggart under the pretence that his presence was announced by the local newspaper. It turns out that his invitation by the university was a lie - presumably no newspaper story existed at all then, or the university would have acted on that. Taggart is exposed as a fraud, Quinn's link to him is so direct that he was even the one who invited him (instead of goading the Colonel into inviting him like it was his own idea) and yet the Colonel continues to trust Quinn blindly - he even has the whole night and day to think about this simple fact, nothing was decided on the spur of the moment.

Sammo

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Andromeda picture

Show generally

Plot hole: The way slipstream works is wildly inconsistent across the show. Sometimes, they have to travel a significant distance to find the nearest slip point, and other times, when it's required by the plot, there's a slip point conveniently right next to the ship.

wizard_of_gore

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Suggested correction: How is this a mistake? Unless the points are evenly distributed and all close to each other, they are going to be different distances away.

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles picture

Invasion of the Punk Frogs - S2-E8

Plot hole: Shredder meets the frogs for the first time and gives them clothes using the holographic projector. The frogs continue to wear the same clothes for the rest of the episode, even without Shredder being around.

TNT

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The Avengers picture

The Winged Avenger - S5-E6

Plot hole: The bad guy somehow knows what is going to happen (via the sketches) even though the events haven't happened yet, like knowing Mrs Peel was going to show up at Pool's mansion in that catsuit and hat, and that the scenes were going to play out like the sketches.

More The Avengers plot holes
Iron Man picture

The Wedding of Iron Man - S1-E13

Plot hole: When Mandarin is concluding that Tony Stark and Iron Man are one and the same, he is watching video footage of when he had Tony Stark captive, and Tony first constructed the Iron Man armor and used a dummy that looked like himself in order to fool Mandarin into thinking that Iron Man was rescuing Tony Stark from captivity. If Mandarin had video footage of Tony Stark in that room where he organized his own rescue, then he also would have had footage of Tony Stark constructing the dummy of himself in the first place, and thus would have known Stark was Iron Man from the get go. (00:13:06)

Phaneron

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Power Rangers RPM picture

Go for the Green - S1-E4

Plot hole: Dillon was quickly identified by the city sensors as having metal parts, thus classifying him as a threat to the city. Yet Tenaya, who is essentially a cyborg, tries out for the Green Ranger without setting off the same sensors.

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Suggested correction: Tenaya wasn't caught because the guards assumed the equipment was faulty. It was giving positives all day because of all the sleeper agents we find out about later.

More Power Rangers RPM plot holes
Wonder Woman picture

The Feminum Mystique: Part 1 - S1-E5

Plot hole: If her younger sister Drusilla is sent from Paradise Island to retrieve Diana, how did she get to Washington DC or wherever, she had no way of knowing where her older sister would be.

Rob245

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Black Lightning picture

The Book of Blood: Chapter Two: The Perdi - S2-E6

Plot hole: When announcing the 14 deaths, they make a generic statement to the friends and family of everyone in the pods, without first telling the affected families directly?! There's no way this would be dealt with like that - not least as they all then seem shocked that the parents start a riot/panic about whether their children are dead or not. Anyone with half a brain cell would have seen that coming a mile off. Not to mention that later on we discover one of the parents STILL hasn't been told if his daughter's alive or not. If this was a coverup or otherwise secret they wouldn't have said anything - there's no reason to announce the deaths but not clarify who died.

Jon Sandys

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Power Rangers Samurai picture

The Team Unites - S1-E1

Plot hole: This was the first episode of the series and we see that the rangers are unable to figure out how to properly operate their zords; but in Origins Part 1 (which takes place prior to this) they have no issues with the zords at all.

More Power Rangers Samurai plot holes
Star Wars Rebels picture

Spark of Rebellion - S1-E1

Plot hole: Ezra escapes from the Ghost crew through the ship's ducts. When the ship comes under attack from TIE fighters, he eventually falls out and into the nose gun turret. However, that turret is directly connected to the cockpit. There is no duct where he fell for him to fall out of.

More Star Wars Rebels plot holes
Saint Seiya picture

Cygnus! Hyogen no senshi - S1-E3

Plot hole: Saori Kido's presentation does not make a lick of sense. Assuming it happens through some odd holographic mechanism never seen before or after, it's day 3 of the tournament, so it appears extravagant that only then she'd start telling the audience what the Galaxian Wars are. Second.it's day 3 of the tournament.and the third match. That means that they have been packing a stadium with dozens of thousands of people, who come over for ONE match that lasts a few minutes. That's a real stretch, to say the least. There's also a minor but kinda funny matter; the way the cameras are shown pointing, the whole world is tuned into an uninterrupted upskirt shot of Saori Kido delivering her solemn speech.

Sammo

More Saint Seiya plot holes
Superman picture

The Mad Scientist - S1-E1

Plot hole: The Mad Scientist's lair is on the top of a tall pointy mountain with no real flat areas. But Lois is somehow able to land her 1930's-1940's era propeller plane on the top of this mountain with no runways or flats for her to come to a stop on from flying. Which is physically impossible. (00:04:45)

Quantom X

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MacGyver picture

Lidar + Rogues + Duty - S3-E16

Plot hole: Riley's father Ellwood shows up unannounced at Phoenix headquarters. The address for the Phoenix Foundation Headquarters is classified, as is Riley's job. How did he know where to go? (00:22:10)

toroscan

More MacGyver plot holes
Magnum P.I. picture

Mondays Are for Murder - S2-E13

Plot hole: In an effort to keep Glenn's death as quiet as possible, Higgins hires a private pathologist to do an autopsy to see if there were any foreign substances or poisons in his system when he died. A few scenes later it is revealed that Glen was undergoing chemotherapy. How is it possible that the pathologist missed the cancer and the chemo treatment in his investigation? What he found was an excess of antacids.

toroscan

More Magnum P.I. plot holes
Jonny Quest picture

Pursuit of the Po-Ho - S1-E4

Plot hole: Dr. Quest is speaking through the Dragonfly's speakers to the Po-Hos as they fly over the jungle, telling them he is their air God and is angry the tribe has taken hostages. Quest could have told the Po-Hos to just release the hostages, rather than putting himself in danger later on by getting captured.

Scott215

More Jonny Quest plot holes
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