Best TV factual errors of all time

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London's Burning picture

Episode #4.7 - S4-E7

Factual error: In this episode Blackwall Station is shown as a London Underground tube station. Blackwall Station is a Docklands Light Rail (DLR) station. Also look at the destination sign on the front of the train, which reads 'THAMES LINE', No such line/station exists on the London Underground.

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Kickin' It picture

Wasabi Warriors - S1-E1

Factual error: Jack enters the tournament as a recognized white belt but he is scheduled to face Kim who is ranked as a black belt. Tournaments do not allow match ups between white and black belts; it's forbidden in all styles of martial arts.

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Desperate Housewives picture

It Wasn't Meant to Happen - S2-E20

Factual error: Gabrielle visits Dale, her adopted child's natural father, at his high school and interrupts a pep rally for the football team's upcoming game. Dale, the team's Quarterback, even says that in the last game, he threw for 260 yards. The problem is that it is spring. Dale has just returned from a week in Florida for Spring Break. Football season is over. Basketball season should be over or ending soon. There couldn't have been a pep rally if the season is over.

Rlvlk

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Breaking Vegas picture

Show generally

Factual error: In the episode, "Professor Blackjack", Manny puts a stack of one hundred dollar bills on the card table for the professor to bet. The bills are the new ones issued a few years ago with the enlarged portrait of Benjamin Franklin. The scene is supposed to take place in 1961.

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Tru Calling picture

Haunted - S1-E5

Factual error: Tru arrives "more than three hours late" for the MCAT and then begins the test. Firstly, it would be pointless for her to even bother going at that time, since she'd have already missed the entire Verbal Reasoning section and possibly the Physical Sciences as well (depending on how much more than three hours she was late). Secondly, that's really a moot point since late arrivals to MCAT testing centers are not permitted to take the test.

DavidK93

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Over There picture

Show generally

Factual error: In episode 7, we see a toilet in the improvised jail. In fact, most "toilets" in Iraq are specially built holes in the floor.

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Criminal Minds picture

Derailed - S1-E9

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.

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MacGyver picture

Pirates - S2-E15

Factual error: A 250-year-old sea chest recovered from the ocean floor is opened, and all its paper items are perfectly dry: the log book can be opened and read, and the letters can easily be unrolled. Highly unlikely. The chest's wood and pitch would deteriorate (salt water is extremely corrosive), and the paper should be damp and crumbly, at the very least. Even more likely, it would have become a lump of unreadable sludge.

Jean G

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Hawaii Five-O picture

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.

Jean G

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Gilmore Girls picture

Double Date - S1-E12

Factual error: Lane wants Rory to talk to Dean about setting up Lane with his friend Todd. While asking Rory to do this, Lane asks for the date to be planned for the following Sunday, after church; however, Lane is Seventh-day Adventist and they believe the Sabbath is Saturday and therefore attend church on Saturday, not Sunday. (00:04:45)

ryane517

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

Suggested correction: Many Seventh-Day Adventist churches do actually hold church on Sunday.

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That's So Raven picture

Mind Your Business - S3-E18

Factual error: The saboteur sabotages Raven's business by pouring lots of kernels in the popcorn machine. However, the saboteur pours the kernels into the glass holding box instead of the pot, so the kernels would not have heated up enough to cause the popcorn mountain.

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The A-Team picture

A Nice Place to Visit - S1-E14

Factual error: When the team is in uniform for their friend's funeral, Smith and Peck (both commissioned officers) have their Special Forces insignias on their berets when they should have their rank insignia.

Mister Ed

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New Amsterdam picture

Show generally

Factual error: This series uses a beautifully-rendered CGI sequence of New Amsterdam C. 1650 morphing into New York City of the present day. The Native American tribe we see at the start of the sequence, however, never inhabited the New England area. They look more like the Lakota plains tribes seen in Dances With Wolves. The North-Eastern tribes didn't build teepees as seen here, either. The dwellings should be longhouse wigwams made of wood.

Jean G

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Wonder Woman picture

The Return of Wonder Woman - S2-E1

Factual error: When Steve gets attacked by the bad guys and Wonder Woman shows up, the lady in the car pulls out a camera and films the event. She sits still, the car isn't moving, and she does all the filming from the same position. However when she watches the playback, the film shows footage from multiple angles and varying distances, which is impossible because she and the camera were in the same spot the whole time.

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Sherlock picture

His Last Vow - S3-E4

Factual error: Sherlock takes pains to explain in detail that he will deliberately corrupt the magnetic code stripe on an access control card he intends to use to enter the elevator to the villain's penthouse, by carrying it next to an operational cell phone. (This is possible due to the low frequency magnetic field from a phone's vibration motor.) But when he actually goes to access the elevator, he simply touches his access card to the reader instead of swiping or inserting the card through a slot, which is how a magnetic stripe reader would operate. The elevator uses an RFID proximity reader, not a magnetic stripe reader - a phone wouldn't corrupt an embedded RFID tag.

Stringman

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Battlestar Galactica picture

Epiphanies - S2-E13

Factual error: Early in the episode a damaged Viper makes its way back to Galactica with its port-side gun trailing smoke as if in an atmosphere. But in a vacuum, the smoke wouldn't trail. It would build upon itself much the way shaving foam does when slowly leaking from a damaged can, unless the ship changed course and/or speed and then the smoke would appear to do the opposite - ship turns right, smoke moves off to the left because it remains on its original course regardless of what the ship does. The gun is not propelling the smoke rearward. The ammo inside is simply burning. (00:05:15)

johnrosa

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The Office picture

Traveling Salesmen - S3-E12

Factual error: While the sales team break up the huddle in the parking lot to do sales calls, the camera zooms out and you see a palm tree in the background, but this show takes place in cold weather Pennsylvania. (00:16:25)

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Saved by the Bell picture

Save the Max - S2-E3

Factual error: When Zack is given the old newspaper with Mr. Belding's article, the headline reads, "Picture on pages 3 and 4." When he looks at the picture, he looks at the middle of the paper, with quite a few pages at both sides of the newspaper. Pages 3 and 4 would be near the front and would be on opposite sides of the same page.

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