Best drama TV character mistakes of all time

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Star Trek: Picard picture

Absolute Candor - S1-E4

Character mistake: Dr. Agnes Jurati, one of the Federation leading scientists, is bored during the hyperspace travel, and so she chats a bit with the captain. While she gives her quirky speech, she casually mentions that "there are over 3 billion stars in our galaxy." She's not wrong, technically, but the number of stars in our galaxy is estimated between 100 and 400 billion. She is way off. (00:08:40)

Sammo

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Suggested correction: Two things. You state that she's not wrong, which she isn't. The fact that she chose an odd turn of phrase doesn't make it a mistake. Plus, you reference the number of 'galaxies' in our galaxy but I am guessing this is just a typo.

wizard_of_gore

Oh duh, yes. It's absolutely a typo, I'll see that it's fixed. And well, 'not technically wrong' was just me being cheeky. You know that making a statement off by 100 times would be classified as a mistake in any situation.

Sammo

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Law & Order picture

Remand - S6-E10

Character mistake: McCoy asks his witness, an expert geneticist, what the odds are that a DNA sample presented in evidence does not match that of the defendant. He answers "About one in two hundred." That is idiotic. If the DNA samples are identical the chances that the the sample presented in evidence does not come from the defendant is about one in two billion, not one in two hundred! A bright high school senior would know that, never mind an expert geneticist.

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Suggested correction: If the odds are 1 in 200, that means the accuracy of the DNA is 99.5%. If the odds are 1 in 2 billion, that means the accuracy of the DNA is 99.9999999995%, which simply isn't true.

Bishop73

In fact as any geneticist (i.e, anyone like me) will tell you the chances of two identical DNA "fingerprints" coming from two different and unrelated individuals are around one in two thousand million. Two billion. In fact the odds are much higher than that but we scientists don't like to make claims that sound unlikely or fantastic. The accuracy of DNA fingerprinting is, as you point out, 99.9999999995%. You correction is wrong and the posting is correct.

Except that's not what happened in the scene or what happens in real life. You simply don't understand what you're arguing. You're not a geneticist.

Bishop73

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The Wire picture

Unto Others - S4-E7

Character mistake: When Cutty quits the truant officer job and walks out of the office, he runs into his old girl from way back. She calls him David instead of Dennis. (00:51:00)

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Peaky Blinders picture

Season 5 generally

Character mistake: Several times Tommy addresses Sir Oswald Mosley as Mr Mosley instead of the correct Sir Oswald. Mosley never corrects him, which given his snobbishness portrayed throughout the series seems highly unlikely.

Necrothesp

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Cheers picture

Ill-Gotten Gaines - S11-E8

Character mistake: Cliff tests Norm's memory by asking him who the bad guy in 'Herbie The Love Bug' was (presumably meaning the first movie, which was just 'The Love Bug, ' no Herbie in the title, and not the TV series that actually had the 'Herbie, the Love Bug' title). Norm answers Keenan Wynn, and is told by Cliff that is correct and that his memory is OK. Wynn was the antagonist in the second movie, 'Herbie Rides Again' (reprising his role from the 'Absent-Minded Professor'). The bad guy in 'The Love Bug' was played by David Tomlinson of 'Mary Poppins' fame.

Vader47000

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Eastenders picture

Show generally

Character mistake: 27/1/15 Max tells his two daughters to get in his car to go to Emma's funeral. Max's car is a Mercedes SLK which is only a two seater, and therefore wouldn't seat three people.

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ER (1994)

ER picture

Lockdown - S8-E22

Character mistake: Carter tells the mother of the smallpox infected children that no one has seen smallpox for 50 years. The episode aired in 2002, WHO didn't start its global eradication of smallpox until late 1950's and the last case was reported in 1978, which is only about 20 years.

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Hey Arnold! picture

Married - S5-E16

Character mistake: The first time Arnold tries Rhonda's marriage predictor test, he says his favorite number is five, but Rhonda actually makes six moves. The second time, Arnold says it's three, but Rhonda counts off four.

AidanN

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The Dead Zone picture

Collision - S3-E3

Character mistake: When Johnny is at the hospital, having a vision of his mother, Gene Purdy and Sarah is waiting for news of him following his accident, he states that a vision earlier was related to his accident 'Nine years ago'. Later, when he is in the ambulance on the way to where his accident occurred, he asks the paramedic if it was the same ambulance. The paramedic replies, 'Yeah, I've been driving the same rig for nearly eight years'.

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Charlie's Angels picture

Waikiki Angels - S5-E6

Character mistake: At the Life Guard Trials, Kelly is the first Angel to arrive. She finishes 20th. Then, four other competitors arrive (21st / 22nd / 23rd / 24th). Then, Kris arrives. The judge says to her "You're 23." (00:11:15)

Great_Captain

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The Twilight Zone picture

The Odyssey of Flight 33 - S2-E18

Character mistake: The real speed that was reported was 3,000 knots. At one point, the plane encountered a bright flash, and violent shaking. The Captain surmised that they broke the sound barrier. 3,000 knots equates to over 3,000mph. The sound barrier (Mach 1) is about 767mph, and the captain would know that.

Movie Nut

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Kyle XY picture

This Is Not a Test - S1-E5

Character mistake: When Kyle is re-taking the test at the end of the school day, you see him bubble in 4 answer and turn the page and continue to answer questions. However there were 7 questions on the first page so he ended up putting the answer to #8 on #5 of the scantron. Kyle is too smart to do this.

Bishop73

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The Waltons picture The Waltons mistake picture

The Threshold - S9-E17

Character mistake: When John-Boy reads the nursery rhyme "Simple Simon" to his nephew, John-Boy points to the colorful illustrations in this book and tells John Curtis, "See, that's Simple Simon, he's a bear." This is incorrect. In the illustrations, Simple Simon is a donkey, and it's the pieman who is a bear (he's wearing a chef's hat and apron). (00:40:50)

Super Grover

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Mission: Impossible picture

The Bank - S2-E4

Character mistake: The 'perfect' German postcard Rollin has written is full of mistakes: 1) The 'sie' must have a capital 'S' because it's a personal pronoun; 2) The only sentence stops in the middle and makes no sense; 3) The word 'Besten' has to be written without a capital because it's not a noun; 4) In Germany the house number stands after the street name, not before; 5) The streetname makes no sense. Too many mistakes for a so-called 'perfect' card. (00:04:40)

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The Triangle picture

Show generally

Character mistake: Patterson - the oceanographer - at one point claims that Lithuania is land-locked. She should know better; in fact, Lithuania has a coastline of close to 100 km on the Baltic Sea.

Andrew Perry

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