Best drama TV character mistakes of all time

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Little House on the Prairie picture

Times Are Changing (1) - S9-E1

Character mistake: Almanzo says he hasn't seen his brother Royal in 10 years, but in fact he saw him not long ago as he looked after his 2 sons who were terrors, and at that time Royal didn't even have a daughter.

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Suggested correction: Royal's wife was pregnant when he visited years before Laura had the baby.

What happened to Pearly Day? Almonzo's younger brother?

Not sure if this varied in the show, but in real life Pearly Day had six children and died in 1934 just a month prior to his 65th birthday.

Almanzo had 2 brothers. Royal and Jenny's dad, the one that was dying.

That may not work, unless Laura and Almonzo were not married yet at the time of Royal's first visit, but it is a good suggestion.

In the TV series, the episode that they were taking care of the boys was only six episodes before Laura found out she was pregnant, and Nellie's babies were still babies throughout that time so it wasn't that long. And Rose wasn't that big When they came to visit, so it was probably only 1 1/2-2 years of a time gap. Also, when Royal and Jenny came to visit, Almanzo introduced Royal to Laura as if they had never met before.

It was NOT years! Royal, his wife and 2 sons visited Almanzo in Season 7. His wife did announce she was pregnant in the end. However, when Royal comes back to visit with Jenny, at the beginning of Season 9. If Jenny is supposed to be the baby Royal's wife was pregnant with then she would have still been a year old or 2 at most. They do explain that his wife died, but what about those boys? They would have been early teens by then. Nothing is ever said about them or why they aren't with Royal.

But Laura says "glad to finally meet you Royal", when he came with Jenny. But she met him when he came with the boys.

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Orange Is the New Black picture

Storm-y Weather - S5-E13

Character mistake: The officers count the inmates and say there's 10 missing. There are indeed 10 inmates hiding in the pool. However, Pennsatucky and Chang had escaped the prison. The officers counted Linda as an inmate, who had been hiding in Litchfield the whole season, and wasn't on the list. That would make it 11 people missing, not 10.

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Law & Order: Criminal Intent picture

Anti-Thesis - S2-E3

Character mistake: Nicole Wallace has murdered and stolen the identity of Professor Elizabeth Hitchens, who was Australian. While speaking to Detective Goren she refers to her life in Melbourne, pronouncing it the American way : "Mel-born." No Australian would do such a thing - it is pronounced "Melbun." A detail-obsessed knowall like Goren would pick up on that immediately.

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Suggested correction: Not everyone who is Australian says 'Melbun' when referring to Melbourne.

Utter rubbish. I lived in Australia for thirty five years. Nobody - absolutely nobody - calls it "Mel-Bawn." It's "Melbun." Incidentally, this also applies to the American pronunciation of the capital of Queensland - "Bris-bayne." It's pronounced "Brisbun."

More Law & Order: Criminal Intent character mistakes
Hustle picture

The Road Less Travelled - S5-E6

Character mistake: The plan hatched by Carlton Wood and Harry Fielding makes no sense at all. They recruit three people who they think were victims of Micky Bricks' crew, asking them each to deposit a cheque for £1,000,000 into an account that their accomplice Alfie will show to Albert Stroller to "prove" his wealth. They are on a hiding to nothing. A bank statement will always show a ledger balance - all funds including uncleared cheques - and an available balance, the amount of money in the account that can be withdrawn at any one time. Alfie's account will show an available balance of nil and will convince nobody of anything. A city wideboy like Wood would know this and would ask for the deposits to be made by account transfer or even in cash, or he could even cut out of the middle men and prepare a fake bank statement. A ruthless businessman like him would have no trouble at all arranging a simple thing like that. The way he does things is uncharacteristically clumsy and includes nothing but loose ends.

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Monk picture

Mr. Monk Visits a Farm - S5-E14

Character mistake: When Randy Disher is having Chinese food in his apartment with his new girlfriend in 3-12 "Mr. Monk Gets Cabin Fever", he gets a fortune stating that he is going to get money from his uncle, and says that he doesn't have an uncle. In this episode Randy inherits a farm from his uncle who appears to have committed suicide, but was actually murdered.

BrooklynGirl418

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Suggested correction: Randy says when that uncle dies that they were never close, so his leaving him the farm comes as a total surprise. It's still a character mistake, however, Randy is established as the sort of person who could "blank out" a relative that long-lost.

Captain Defenestrator

Randy says he can run the farm because he went there and helped his uncle every summer.

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Ghost Whisperer picture

Birthday Presence - S5-E1

Character mistake: When Aiden and Melinda go the the hospital to visit Jim/Sam the picture on the hospital badge is of Jim Clancy not Sam Lucas... Jim has been in Sam's body for many years at this point. You can see the badge multiple times in the episode.

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Columbo picture

Suitable for Framing - S1-E5

Character mistake: Art expert Dale Kingston describes Goya as 'the penultimate artist'. "Penultimate" has nothing to do with greatness or artistry, it means second to last, and nowhere during his speech does he indicate that Goya is 'second to last' in anything to do with the discussion. In the context he uses it the word is completely meaningless.

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CSI: Crime Scene Investigation picture CSI: Crime Scene Investigation mistake picture

Too Tough to Die - S1-E16

Character mistake: Seven minutes into the show, Sarah Sidle is about to do an internal sexual assault exam/kit on an unconscious victim in the hospital, Sarah picks up a metal speculum and says aloud to the victim (in a presumed moment of empathy), that she "never really liked this part of my yearly exam. These things are always freezing" referring to the speculum in her hands. She then brings a speculum to her mouth and begins to blow open-mouthed on it two times, forcing her hot breath on it to warm it. She then begins to insert it into the victim as the scene cuts away. This is pure stupidity, as no trained CSI would ever contaminate the tool like this. Sarah just added her own DNA to the speculum via her breath so any saliva or body fluids are now on the speculum what she is about to use on this patient, who is now also exposed to any STDs from Sarah.

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Criminal Minds picture

What Happens at Home... - S6-E10

Character mistake: After the murder that takes place while the team is at the church meeting, they gather together to talk about narrowing down the suspect list to the people who didn't show up to the meeting. Spencer shows up with a stack of papers and says 18 suspects didn't show up. We then see his actor break character and almost laughs when he looks over at Ashley, whose actress too almost breaks character from laughing.

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Jonathan Creek picture

The Curious Tale of Mr Spearfish - S3-E1

Character mistake: The whole mystery kicks off when Creek sees a photograph of Alice Spearfish with her parents, and concludes that she is adopted because two people with brown eyes cannot have a child with blue eyes. An obsessive polymath like Creek must surely know that that is wrong. The genetics are complex and though uncommon it is possible for a couple with brown eyes to have a child with blue eyes and the other way around.

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Suggested correction: Jonathan actually states it's a photo of 2 blue eyed parents and a brown eyed daughter.

Which is still possible! It isn't even uncommon. Brown eyed parents can have a blue eyed child and vice versa - that's what recessive genes are all about.

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Game of Thrones picture

The Last Of The Starks - S8-E4

Character mistake: Gendry gets declared as Lord Gendry Baratheon of Storm's End by Daenerys. But he refers to himself as Gendry Rivers - the surname given to bastards from the Riverlands. Gendry comes from King's Landing, and bastards from there are called Waters, not Rivers. Given that Gendry is not an acknowledged highborn bastard, he should never have had a surname in the first place.

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The Office picture

Business Ethics - S5-E2

Character mistake: Meredith admits during the ethics seminar that she has been sleeping with Bruce, the HammerMill rep, for discounts on paper/paper supplies for the company, as well as Outback steak coupons, for 6 years. But, Dunder Mifflin did not begin selling Hammer Mill products until 3-2 "The Convention" when Michael got the contract.

Anastasia Nicole Lapidakis

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Suggested correction: Michael didn't establish the contract with Hammer-mill. Rather, he locked them up as an exclusive supplier. It's unknown if they were already selling the products to Dunder Mifflin alongside Staples and Office Max.

Wrong, Josh says they cannot sell Hammer-mill products as they are exclusive to Staples so therefore they wouldn't have been able to sell there products alongside as mentioned before until Michael made them an exclusive to them solely, Dunder Mifflin. Therefore the original mistake stands true.

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White Collar picture

Live Feed - S5-E10

Character mistake: When Neal tells Rebecca about an Indian Idol and describes the idol to her, she tells him it's the Hindu Idol of Seeta, the goddess of wealth. Actually the idol is of Goddess Laxmi.

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Blue Bloods picture Blue Bloods mistake picture

The Uniform - S2-E11

Character mistake: While handcuffing an auxiliary officer in his apartment, there is a poster on the wall reading, "attention military personal..." Personal is misused. It should read "attention military personnel." (00:16:02)

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Elementary picture

Possibility Two - S1-E17

Character mistake: They are in the interrogation room questioning the fiancé of the scientist Natasha when the captain says, "the blood we found at the scene of your fiance's murder, it didn't belong to Bobby Cordero." The characters name was Benny Cordero, which the captain says correctly a few lines later. (00:33:25)

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Suggested correction: When Diggle is walking away from Felicity, he is still talking to her but it looks like he is talking to Nyssa.

Stephen Edmonds 1

People have already tried to correct this mistake. It is valid. In the scenes prior, Nyssa says Oliver will do what it takes to kill her and Oliver says "tonight, Nyssa Al Ghul faces justice." Nyssa is there to bring the team the news that Oliver is going to try to kill her. Felicity says "Oliver wouldn't", meaning Oliver wouldn't try to kill Nyssa. Diggle says "I think what she's [she being Felicity] trying to say to say is that Oliver would never do anything to hurt you" [you being Nyssa whom Oliver is going to try to kill]. He is meant to say "Nyssa." Otherwise the entire line means Nyssa or Laurel are there to convince Felicity that Oliver would never do anything to hurt Felicity.

Bishop73

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The Queen's Gambit picture

Doubled Pawns - S1-E3

Character mistake: When Beth and her mother discuss the agent's fee of 15%, Beth says it is $49.54. However the prize money was $500, the expenses were $172.30, which leaves them $327.70. 15% of $327.70 equals $49.16. (00:10:00)

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Designated Survivor picture Designated Survivor mistake picture

The Blueprint - S1-E9

Character mistake: In the 11/14/2005 US Army Rangers report about Peter MacLeish, the word captain right under MacLeish's signature is misspelled "captian."

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