Best mystery TV plot holes of all time

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The Prisoner picture

The Chimes of Big Ben - S1-E2

Plot hole: When Nadia had been held captive in The Village, how did she get word to her accomplice to be ready at the exact time, in the exact location, and with a packing crate ready, and a whole series of transports arranged? Even if Nadia was in on the ruse of conning Number 6, wouldn't he be suspicious?

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Perry Mason picture

The Case of the Deadly Toy - S2-E27

Plot hole: Claire Allison spends the night in an upstairs bedroom in the Jennings' home. In the middle of the night, she opens a walk-in closet to get another blanket and finds a small printing press. Later in the day, Claire returns to the home, accompanied by Perry Mason, who tells Mr. Jennings that Claire has received threatening letters from Mrs. Jennings' former husband, who still has a key to the Jennings' home, and the printing press may have been used to address the envelopes. Mr. Jennings says, "We'd better investigate" and immediately goes upstairs and opens the closet, even though neither Claire nor Perry Mason said where Claire saw the printing press.

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The Twilight Zone picture

The Beacon - S1-E26

Plot hole: Barrows introduces himself as "Dr. Dennis Barrows," and Teddy asks, "What's a doctor?" As the isolated villagers have never heard of doctors, Teddy would have no way to know that "Doctor" was a title/profession and not simply part of Barrows' name. He should have asked, "What kind of a name is Doctor?"

Jean G

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Are You Afraid of the Dark? picture

The Tale of the Mystical Mirror - S5-E3

Plot hole: It makes no sense that Ms. Valenti gives all of her employees a compact mirror and also invites them to her home. Any of them could open their mirror while standing near a painting of Ms. Valenti and they would discover the secret, as Cindy does.

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

Suggested correction: The compact mirror includes a palette of cosmetics. Cindy shows it to Laurel, who says, "She gave one to me, too, like we're ever gonna use it." Presumably, the employees are mostly using the free samples of cosmetics from the shop displays. I myself have owned some compacts that I didn't always want in my purse (if they were too big or awkward in a certain purse).

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Stranger Things picture

Chapter Seven: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab - S4-E7

Plot hole: The upside down should be mirrored, i.e. all left is right and right is left. When the team finds a gateway where Chrissy died, they should be seeing a mirror image through the ceiling. Also, all buildings should have been reversed. Directions to get there on the bike would have been confusing and reversed, and when any writing was seen in the upside down, it would have been backward.

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Project Blue Book picture

The Green Fireballs - S1-E6

Plot hole: Captain Quinn interrogates a Sergeant and presumably he is let go. Yet for no reason and against all probabilities, Captain Quinn keeps the Sergeant's wallet, which among other things contains the Sergeant's ID card, not to mention other personal effects. How is he going to get on the base without an ID? There is no legal basis for the Captain to keep it. Why keep it? So he could rifle through it and discover a rent receipt later in the show? This is a poor way to further the plot. (00:16:40 - 00:17:30)

toroscan

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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 Rockford Files picture

The Countess - S1-E4

Plot hole: Rockford and Carl Brego are punching and kicking each other on the beach. Someone shoots him down with a rifle. The INSTANT Rockford goes to check out if he's still breathing, two people randomly happen to walk on him popping over from behind a rock as they were having a super casual and amused chat, but see Rockford by the shirtless brute and make a horrified face. Later in the episode the two identify Rockford and say that it looked like the two were fighting. Their facial expressions at the time don't make sense as depicted. Even if we assume that they did not see anything at all and they played it up/filled the blanks in their mind later, the two are not deaf and yet they were not perturbed or curious in the slightest after the loud bang of a gunshot. The way the scene was shot, the only thing tipping them off about anything was seeing Rockford over the corpse (which had barely a small dot of blood visible at the time and would hardly tip anyone off at first sight). (00:18:45)

Sammo

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