Best adventure TV plot holes of all time

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True Lies picture

Independent Dependents - S1-E7

Plot hole: When Helen goes into the air ducts, she simply removes the grates. They would not be loose like that, they would be firmly attached. When the team enters the basement they go through an ordinary door by picking an ordinary lock. A very high security installation like Axe Industries would not have such an insecure entry, even into the basement.

Leicaman

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It Takes a Thief picture

Boom at the Top - S2-E19

Plot hole: While Mundy is trying to disarm the briefcase bomb in the study, his time-sensitive work is interrupted no less than 6 times by people barging in from the party out front. The plot device adds comic relief, but there's no earthly reason why he couldn't have locked or barricaded the door in the first place. (00:36:00)

Jean G

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Once Upon a Time picture

New York City Serenade - S3-E12

Plot hole: When talking to Hook about the photos, Emma states he could have photoshopped them to make it look like she and Henry were in Storybrooke, however she had taken them directly from Henry's camera and had them developed. So Hook had no way to photoshop the pictures from inside the camera. (00:27:00)

Marj Spiritdove

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The Legend of Korra picture

Reunion - S4-E7

Plot hole: Guards at a security checkpoint attack Varrick and Bolin, because a wanted poster identifies them as fugitive traitors. The problem is that poster cannot have been there. Varrick and Bolin escape in the previous episode (Battle of Zaofu) but are captured minutes afterwards. (So, no posters needed.) The next day, they escape again by blowing up their imprisoning train car. Their captor, Bataar, thinks they are dead. Indeed, Varrick intended to die. Later, Bataar is actually shown reporting them dead. One might argue that the poster wasn't a wanted poster, but one that warned people about the empire making an example of the traitors.This argument is too flawed: The empire had many examples already, some very high-profile. And a propaganda poster must be placed in plain sight, not in a security booth corner especially designated to let security guards compare the passing individuals. (00:14:00)

FleetCommand

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Dragon Tales picture

Show generally

Plot hole: In each episode, Emmy, and Max travel to dragon land (often for a long time) without their parents ever knowing. This makes no sense. Their parents would notice sooner, or later that Max, and Emmy always go in, and out of the house, or that it's always quiet in Emmy, and Max's playroom. You'd think Emmy, and Max's parents would get suspicious, and would question their children accordingly.

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What If...? picture

What If... Ultron Won? - S1-E8

Plot hole: At the end of the previous episode, the Watcher gets surprised (literally saying "wait, what?") by the arrival of Infinity Ultron inside Party Thor's universe.In this episode we find out the story of Ultron.Ultron realises for the first time that there are other universes to conquer right then because he can'hear' the Watcher talk (to whom?) and goes after him.So the two episodes don't match;Ultron couldn't have reached the other universe "before" his realization, and Uatu is again surprised by it.

Sammo

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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.)

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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

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Black Sails picture

I. - S1-E1

Plot hole: Why, of all people on board, would the cook know of a specific entry in the captain's log, exactly where to look for it, and that it contained very valuable information?

Friso94

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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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Relic Hunter picture

Buddha's Bowl - S1-E1

Plot hole: Sydney is able to surmise from the artwork (we could also say from the writing, but her rival is one step ahead of her for 2/3 of the episode and it is established that he does not know the language) the precise location of the koi in Lumbini. The map is 150 years old, but there's no way even with a big stretch of imagination to buy that they both'd be able to pinpoint with such ease and certainty its location in the basement of a random building in the bustling market center of a town, that surely changed plenty during the past century and that does not bear any special landmark.

Sammo

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Jackie Chan Adventures picture

Into the Mouth of Evil - S2-E23

Plot hole: While fleeing the guru's disciples through a narrow side street, Jackie gets cut off by the van driven by Dr. Jamba and associates, stun-sprayed in the face, and then loaded into the van. But with three brutish-looking guys being so close to their quarry, the real crooks can take the time for dragging Jackie around to the back door instead of loading him through the side doors?

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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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Lost in Space picture

Target: Earth - S3-E16

Plot hole: The Jupiter 2 crew is duplicated; however, the aliens had never seen Penny (or Judy I think). How can they be duplicated? The aliens don't have ability to know who were there, or they wouldn't have questioned Smith about the crew. Also, they do not know Smith and Will are hiding. So, they don't arm to have any special power to know beyond what they actually observe.

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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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I Spy picture

Happy Birthday... Everybody - S3-E20

Plot hole: After a chance meeting in Mexico, Tom Matthews invites Kelly and Scott to his home for dinner. The address is unlisted, neither knows where the other lives or is staying, and no address or phone information is exchanged before they part. But Kelly and Scott somehow find the house anyway. (00:09:50)

Jean G

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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.

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

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.

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Superman: The Animated Series picture

Target - S2-E7

Plot hole: When Superman comes to Edward Lytener's laboratory to save Lois, Lytener attacks Superman using his "favourite invention," a suit emitting red sun energy. However, it would be very unlikely for him to know that Superman can be weakened by red sun energy. (00:17:44)

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