Friends in High Places - S10-E8
Factual error: Police Officer Troy was taken into a room by Sgt Regan to be interviewed. He has one Sgt stripe on one sleeve. He's a police officer, not a Sgt.
Murdoch.com - S2-E10
Factual error: Enid, the telegraph operator, exclaims that "He is sending an SOS." However, in the 19th century, distress calls did not include the letters "SOS," It was not until the early 20th Century that SOS was chosen as the international distress call.
Factual error: Alice and Kate's little reunion underwater is disrupted by policemen that fire at them, and one of the shots reaches the transport truck, ignites it and makes it explode. The scene is baffling; forgetting the complete disregard for fellow policemen in the vehicle, how would bullets have enough strength to penetrate into an armored truck deep underwater, reach a critical weak point from that angle (the truck is upright, they should be barely get to shoot the roof of it) and still underwater cause inside the completely immersed vehicle a spark that would ignite fuel and make the whole truck explode? (00:31:45)
Factual error: The astronauts land on an asteroid said to orbit a binary star 655 million miles from Earth. This is impossible, as that distance would place them well within our solar system. In fact, they'd be inside the orbit of Saturn, where of course there aren't (nor could there be) any extraneous suns. The nearest star to our system is, in fact, trillions (not millions) of miles away. (00:02:15 - 00:04:00)
Let's Give the Boy a Hand - S1-E4
Factual error: When Dexter and Doakes are looking at the severed foot wearing a soccer cleat, Dexter states, "The foot was severed between the tarsus and the metatarsus." However, the foot was severed proximal to the tarsus, through the tibia and fibula. The cut was easily too high to be between the tarsus and metatarsus. (00:16:45)
Factual error: There is no way Laurel Lance would have been allowed on the prosecution team for Moira Queen's murder trial. Due to the facts that she both dated and as a lawyer represented the defendant's son, the defendant's daughter used to intern for her, and her boyfriend was one of the people killed in the Glades, it would have taken all of two seconds for the court to have her removed if she didn't willingly recuse herself, since her presence would be a major conflict of interest.
All Prologue - S2-E6
Factual error: The police "clone" the cargo dock's computer, as though it were a cell phone, so that they can watch all the cargo traffic and see when containers disappear. In reality, to "clone" a computer would simply make an exact copy of that computer's hard drive at a specific point in time. In order to see what is happening on a specific computer in real time, it is necessary to install some sort of spyware on The Target machine.
Factual error: They used an EpiPen to bring Liv back but they're holding it backwards. The way it's being held, Ravi would have injected himself instead of Liv and she wouldn't be revived.
Factual error: The show starts in 1901 with a woman constable working for the Metropolitan Police Service (Scotland Yard). However women didn't join the Metropolitan Police until 1919 (which is also when the first woman's police uniform was created). Prior to that, women volunteered in the Women's Police Service, but that wasn't formed until 1914.
Factual error: When Riggs and Murtaugh go to investigate the scene where the body of Ramon Alvarez is discovered Scorsese states that Alvarez's dog tags say "SEAL" on them. His dog tags would not say that he is a SEAL on them. The information listed on dog tags is as follows: Name, Social Security Number, Blood Type, Service Branch, and Religious Preference. There is no way to tell what a given service member's MOS (job) from his or her dog tags. (00:14:00)
Point Blank - S2-E9
Factual error: In the scene where Mozzy is using a synthesizer to try and figure out the musical code, he starts playing random chords in frustration. Since the synthesizer is a Minimoog (a monophonic instrument) this is impossible. (00:12:45)
Day 4: 2:00 P.M.-3:00 P.M. - S4-E8
Factual error: When Edgar proves that Mary-Ann Taylor framed Sarah to be the rat in CTU, he claims that she remotely took control of her computer by sending the signal over "a plain old AC power line." This is not possible, unless the computers were equipped with special hardware to separate the AC from the signal. If they were, this traffic would have been observed by James Heller's assistant.
Factual error: No gearbox problem would cause the noises in the episode, it was a clutch problem.
Factual error: As the Royal Navy has its own police (including detectives), there would be no need for a civilian detective to be airlifted onto a submarine, especially to investigate a sudden death that was not originally believed to be a murder.
Suggested correction: The Royal Navy police are not equipped to handle murder; local police are usually used for more serious offences so no claim of a cover up. There are no MoD police attached to a submarine either, so in theory somebody would have to go to the boat. (However they still wouldn't risk surfacing).
Initially there is no suspicion of murder, only an unexplained sudden death. There would be absolutely no need to airlift a civilian detective aboard a top-secret submarine. It wouldn't be the first time a sudden death had occurred aboard a Royal Navy vessel.
Noisy Edge - S1-E12
Factual error: In the beginning of the episode, Charlie is stating that "there is always a solution" and "if there's any limitation it's got to be in the mathematician, not the math". Unfortunately, according to Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorems, this is not true. Simply put, there are mathematical problems that cannot be proven/solved.
Not What It Looks Like - S3-E2
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: The train car in which Elle and the other passengers are held hostage is supposed to be an Amtrak type long distance railroad car traveling from El Paso to Dallas, yet on the inside of the car we can see a large poster showing the Washington, DC Metro system map.
A Thousand Pardons -- You're Dead! - S2-E1
Factual error: Danno, who's posing as a Marine, has hair that's far too long to be permitted in the Corps. In fact, all of the Marines in this episode have non-regulation (too long) haircuts. 'T'was the same then as it is now: US Marines are given "buzz jobs," and hair longer than an inch is not allowed.
Suggested correction: The show is set in the early 1900's, which is the early 20th century. By the time this event transpired, SOS would have been established as a universal distress signal.
The show starts in 1895 and by season 2, it was still the 19th century and before Germany adopted SOS in 1905.
Bishop73