Best drama TV plot holes of all time

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Beverly Hills, 90210 picture

The End of the World as We Know It - S9-E23

Plot hole: Noah cancels the club's scheduled Monica concert because Dylan pays him to have her give a private performance to Dylan and Gina instead. He seems really excited and proud of himself for some reason. Even if Dylan paid him much more than he would have received from the gate (which is likely), this could cost Noah money in the long run. Many customers would probably get angry and decide to stop frequenting a place that would cancel a concert at the last minute for no good reason. Then again, Noah was never exactly a genius - in business or otherwise.

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Skins picture

Pure - S7-E3

Plot hole: In Part 1 look closely when Cassie is showing Maddie the 'Oblivion' website that contain pictures of her. Some of the pictures are those we actually see being taken of her in Part 2 (the following episode). How could they be on the website before they've even been taken?

Liam D

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Justified picture

When the Guns Come Out - S3-E6

Plot hole: Raylan has a hunch that Winona took the money again from the evidence room, so checks the locker, finds the empty box, and assumes she stole it. When they returned the money in the previous season, he said "Put it back anywhere except for where you found it", so as to make it easier for someone to assume it had been misplaced, rather than lost. So the locker being empty is hardly a smoking gun for him to assume Winona's taken the cash.

Jon Sandys

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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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Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) picture

My Late Lamented Friend and Partner - S1-E1

Plot hole: When Jeff and Marty are parked, waiting for Sorrenson to exit the building opposite, Jeff says he should call the police. But he immediately follows Sorrenson and has no time to do so. Later, they arrive even though not called.

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Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman picture

To Have and to Hold - S6-E20

Plot hole: In the ending scene, Mike has a probable concussion from her fall, so Sully keeps her awake to prevent her slipping into a coma. They talk all night, reminiscing as Mike experiences periodic pain spasms. Their talk ends with discussion over them having another child, and then they instantly engage in an intimate moment, which would be impossible, considering her condition, and without further checkup from another doctor. Sometime later she is suddenly feeling 'cured', and they return home.

oprlvr33

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Mad Men picture

Shut the Door, Have a Seat - S3-E13

Plot hole: Pierce getting fired would invalidate his work visa. His existing visa would have been for overseeing the management of a foreign firm with a US presence. He would have had to leave the country and reapply for an investor visa. (00:41:25 - 00:42:00)

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1883 picture

The Fangs of Freedom - S1-E5

Plot hole: When the bandits attack the pioneer's wagons they are chased on horseback by the Captain, Jack and others for quite a distance until Ennis is killed in the confrontation with one of the bandits. In the following scenes Elsa is mourning over his body but her mother and others from the wagon train stroll up and the wagons are in the background-all this after a fairly long chase.

bnemirow

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The Magicians picture

The Secret Sea - S4-E12

Plot hole: In the poison room, Zelda is magically knocked unconscious where Everett explains to her, among other things, that there is a secret reservoir of magic. Plover then mentions the reservoir after Zelda awakens, as if he somehow heard the conversation in her head.

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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

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

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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The Fugitive picture

Second Sight - S4-E7

Plot hole: Kimble enters the bar in the midst of a fight between photographer Howie and a man he tried to blackmail. Kimble comes in too late to hear what the scuffle is about, yet after breaking it up, he somehow knows all about the incriminating photo that sparked it. (00:06:00)

Jean G

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Hollyoaks picture

Show generally

Plot hole: Everyone is puzzling over who pushed Clare Cunningham off The Loft steps. However, when she comes out of The Loft onto the steps just before she is pushed, a CCTV camera is visible above the door covering where she was pushed, meaning that whoever did it should have been recorded. Even if this camera is not real, Warren stated that he would be able to "have you're (Katy and Louise's) every move on CCTV", meaning that somewhere in The Loft Justin would have been captured on camera.

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Trial & Retribution picture

Tracks: Part 1 - S11-E9

Plot hole: When Mike Walker is out looking for his son Connor calls Satch and asks, "What's up with Mike?". She couldn't know that there was anything up with him, she left before he heard his son was missing. Had she called Walker on his cell, he would have explained what was going on, as he was very eager to tell her. Obviously a set-up so that Satch could tell her that the boy was missing.

littlestar

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As the World Turns picture

Show generally

Plot hole: On 7/1/09, Paul stole Dusty's laptop and gave Damian's name to implicate him. Dusty then accused Damian of the theft, describing it as having happened that morning. As shown in that episode, Damian had been with Meg throughout the morning, including the entire time during which Paul committed the theft. However, Damian does not offer Meg as his alibi and Meg fails to recognize that Damian was with her at the time.

DavidK93

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The New Batman Adventures picture

Beware the Creeper - S2-E10

Plot hole: During Ryder's report, as Bruce and company watch it on TV, the camera suddenly zooms in on Joker standing on a catwalk above Ryder, and none of the crew, especially not the camera man who caught the villain, makes a comment about this. They may have thought the Joker (or rather an impersonator) was perhaps a surprise gag in the show, but since this is supposed to be a serious documentary report, it is still strange that they wouldn't point it out.

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The Event picture

Show generally

Plot hole: Episode 1: All passengers on cruise ships have a passenger card with their name and cabin number imprinted. They are not just identical key cards like in hotels.

Jacob La Cour

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