Best drama TV mistakes of all time

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Life on Mars picture

Episode 5 - S1-E5

Revealing mistake: When the Capri crashes into the goal net & they go to arrest the suspect you can see sky satellite dishes on the houses in front of them. Satellite TV didn't start in the UK until the 80s.

peter mcgougan

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Reba picture

She's Leaving Home, Bye Bye (1) - S3-E1

Continuity mistake: In this episode, it shows Brock and Reba moving into the house the show is set in and Kyra is mad about it. In episode 1-22, Reba flashes back to Cheyenne in the same house much younger than Kyra going into kindergarten. The houses should have been different.

krund1998

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A Series of Unfortunate Events picture

The Austere Academy: Part Two - S2-E2

Continuity mistake: In season 1 whenever count Olaf's tattoo is shown, it is always on his inner left ankle (the reptile room part 2, Mr. Poe wipes the makeup to reveal it on the inner ankle, and In the Wide Window part 2 when Sunny chews through the broomstick and Olaf's lag is revealed it is also on the inner ankle. In this episode, after Sunny loosens the laces on Olaf's shoe and the Baudelaires defeat Olaf in the arm wrestling, the tattoo is on the outside left ankle.

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Numb3rs picture

Prime Suspect - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: When Charlie Epps is writing a quadrillion on the whiteboard, the writing alternates between shots. Most noticably when he first writes it down, there is a significant downward tendency of the 000 groups. In the next shot, they are pretty much horizontal. Also the shapes of the commas alter.

Ronnie Bischof

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Roswell picture

Pilot - S1-E1

Continuity mistake: When Max, Michael, and Isabel are at the taco stand discussing Max's saving of Liz's life, you can see Michael hand Max the bottle of Tabasco the three are sharing, and when the shot switches, Michael again has the bottle of Tabasco. (00:13:15)

MoonFaery

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ER (1994)

ER picture ER mistake picture

Be Still My Heart - S6-E13

Visible crew/equipment: When the son of the accident victims is being led through the trauma rooms to see his parents' bodies, you can see Laura Innes crouching under a table in the background directing the scene. Innes was the director of this episode and it was established that this episode took place on her character's day off. Therefore, she should not have appeared in front of the camera at all. (00:32:30)

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The Pacific picture The Pacific mistake picture

Guadalcanal/Leckie - S1-E1

Factual error: On the map behind the colonel during the first scene, Iceland is labelled as being under Nazi control. This is incorrect, as the British were in control of the country during the whole of the war. (00:05:10)

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Lupin picture

Chapter 1 - S1-E1

Plot hole: The protagonist gets in the exclusive, multi-millionaire, invites-only auction because the invitation is on a printed letter that he faked. This means that the guards at the entrance don't have a guest list to check, and since nobody knows who this person is, the staff does run a background check on his identity when he makes the first outrageous bid...by looking his name up on Wikipedia. That's mighty low standards of security, especially for an auction that was supposed to be for a selected audience and the most important in France.

Sammo

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JAG (1995)

JAG picture

Washington Holiday - S2-E9

Factual error: In the whole episode, Romania is depicted as a monarchy with the king in a position that allows him to make political decisions. However, Romania ceased to be a monarchy in 1947. By the time depicted in the episode (circa 1997), Romania was a republic and its head of state was the president. Members of the ex-royal family did not hold any positions in the Romanian government and were certainly not authorized to represent Romania in international events.

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Lie to Me picture

The Best Policy - S1-E7

Visible crew/equipment: At about 30 minutes into the episode, right after Cal says: "if Jeffrey knows about priox, he's going to jail. But I'm gonna be damn sure before I send him there", you can see a hand in the top right corner of the screen.

catri

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Dawson's Creek picture

Coming Home - S4-E1

Visible crew/equipment: In the scene where Joey and Pacey have arrived back at Capeside, and are getting things ready to get off the "True Love," in one shot you can see the microphone clipped to the back of Joey's shorts.

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Doc Martin picture

Born with a Shotgun - S5-E3

Character mistake: When Grandad collapses, the Doc calls Morwenna's grandfather Mr. Dunwich, which is the surname of one of his patients in this episode. The grandfather has the same surname as Morwenna, which is Newcross.

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Ally McBeal picture

Boy Next Door - S3-E16

Plot hole: Throughout the show it is reported several times that Billy and Ally met when they were both eight years old in a park by sniffing each other's bottoms. However, when Billy is buried in season 3 his tombstone reads, 1968-2000, making him 32 years old. Ally is only 29 and does not turn 30 until later in that season which would at the very least, put them 2 years apart. (00:41:15)

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Forever Knight picture

Forward into the Past - S2-E4

Factual error: Nick tells fellow vampire Aristotle, "You still owe me for that time at the Battle of Hastings." Nick was brought across in 1228, or so the intro told us every week. The Battle of Hastings, as any British school kid knows, was fought in 1066, over 100 years before Nick's mortal birth. (00:29:30)

Jean G

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