Best mystery TV character mistakes of all time

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Leverage picture

The Rundown Job - S5-E10

Character mistake: Upon finding the Spanish flu virus missing, Hardison freaks out about it killing 50m people 100 years ago, saying it would be even more deadly today due to the higher population. There's no reason to think so - the death toll in 1918 was massively exacerbated by the aftermath of WWI. Not to mention today we have vaccines, plus most deaths then were actually caused by bacterial pneumonia, which today is easily treated with antibiotics.

Jon Sandys

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Crime picture

Episode #1.3 - S1-E3

Character mistake: Richie Gulliver is referred to as Rory Gulliver on the newspaper headline. As he's supposedly a very well-known Member of the Scottish Parliament, it's unlikely a newspaper would make a mistake like this.

Necrothesp

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Relic Hunter picture

Smoking Gun - S1-E2

Character mistake: When the bad guys put the generator in front of the air vent, Nigel looks at the white smoke and pointing at it says "Carbon monoxide." Carbon monoxide is colorless, white smoke is mostly condensed vapor. (00:35:20)

Sammo

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Surface picture

Show generally

Character mistake: When Rich refers to the film showing Davis (decades ago), he figures they were in "Asia... Mongolia or somewhere." However, the film cannister had "Tibet, 1937" written on it - important enough to show the audience, but not for the character to read? (00:40:25)

David R Turner

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Get Smart picture

Pussycats Galore - S2-E27

Character mistake: Maxwell translates his famous line "And loving it' into the German 'Und damit gefreut'. Agent 99 who claims to speak German fluently confirms it. This translation is both far away from the meaning and doesn't make any sense at all. The right translation is 'Und liebe es'. (00:09:50)

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Numb3rs picture

Sabotage - S1-E6

Character mistake: In the epilogue, Charlie illustrates the relationship of mathematics to real life by discussing the golden ratio and its presence in a host of real-life situations, including the shape of a nautilus shell and the distribution of petals in a flower. These claims are disputed by some mathematicians (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio#Nature), and the one about the nautilus shell one is untrue (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_spiral#Spirals_in_nature). It's possible Charlie is just repeating what he has read or heard without investigating it for himself, but this is uncharacteristic of him.

paolog

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Matlock picture

The Singer - S7-E5

Character mistake: Near the end, Matlock says that he can prove who killed KC. The burden of proof lies with the prosecution; as a defense attorney, Matlock doesn't have to prove anything.

Cubs Fan

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