Best drama TV factual errors of 2005

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Grey's Anatomy picture

Throwing It All Away - S10-E15

Factual error: In the opening scenes, Arizona mistakenly says a child suffering from imminent liver failure is at risk for psoriasis, when the script called for the word cirrhosis. Psoriasis is a skin disease. Cirrhosis is the medical term for end stage liver disease.

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Prison Break picture

Season 1 generally

Factual error: When Michael fills the tank with water (below the stock room), he then strips his clothes off, and slides down a pipe and into the water at the bottom of the tank. Since the water level was way above him, the pipe he slid down and the access to get there would have been flooded also. There was no water in the pipe he slid down, so for that area to be dry, it would have to be above the water line.

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Doctor Who picture

The Idiot's Lantern - S2-E10

Factual error: One of the programs on the new television set is Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? In 1953, this quiz show was broadcast on Thursdays. But, it's the eve of the coronation, which makes it Monday the 1st of June. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? wasn't on that evening.

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Supernatural picture

Devil May Care - S9-E2

Factual error: When Sam and Dean show up at the crime scene to investigate, they are stopped by a woman wearing digital Army ACU's. She introduces herself as Sergeant Miranda Bates, even though she has rank insignia on her cover and her chest that identifies her as a PFC (private first class). (00:14:05)

Micah80

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Numb3rs picture

Noisy Edge - S1-E12

Factual error: In the beginning of the episode, Charlie is stating that "there is always a solution" and "if there's any limitation it's got to be in the mathematician, not the math". Unfortunately, according to Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorems, this is not true. Simply put, there are mathematical problems that cannot be proven/solved.

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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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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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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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Medium picture

I Married a Mind Reader - S1-E11

Factual error: A nitpicking mistake, but on the set of "I Married a Mind Reader", the front door is a modern steel design. Back in the 60's, front doors were almost always wood (steel doors weren't available until the 1970's or 80's), and the window design would have been larger on a 1960's fan-window wooden door.

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Wanted picture

Rush - S1-E1

Factual error: When Rose is introduced to the entire team McGloin shakes her hand and says that he (respects or admires) anyone that has survived the POW school. She smiles, nods and walks away. McGloin then explains to the last remaining teammate that all NIOs attend the POW school and explains briefly what it is. First: It is the SERE school. Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape not really POW. Second: Not all, not even most, NIOs attend SERE school, just some.

Rlvlk

More Wanted factual errors
Point Pleasant picture

Who's Your Daddy? - S1-E3

Factual error: When she's giving the historical tour, Sarah talks about how the Puritans who settled in Point Pleasant faced hardships during their first winter there. But the first village at Point Pleasant was built in 1817, a century and a half after Puritans ceased to exist as a distinct group.

DavidK93

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Ghost Whisperer picture

The One (2) - S1-E22

Factual error: The tail section of the crashed plane is from an early model 737, based on the curvature where the forward edge of the vertical stabilizer meets the top of the fuselage. The maximum seating capacity would have been about 130 passengers, while the number of crash victims was given as approximately twice that.

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Revelations picture

Hour Six - S1-E6

Factual error: Jonah tells Richard that Saturn has a "rogue moon" in a retrograde orbit that travels "at four times the speed" of Saturn's other moons. The graphic on Jonah's computer shows that the moon in question is Phoebe, which does indeed orbit in the opposite direction from other Saturnian moons. And the graphic correctly shows Phoebe's orbit as being much further from the planet than the other moons. However, as a direct consequence of its greater orbital radius, Phoebe is actually among Saturn's *slowest* moons. It has a longer orbital period (or "month") and a slower orbital velocity than all the Saturnian moons with smaller orbital radii, of which there are twenty.

DavidK93

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Threshold picture

Shock - S1-E5

Factual error: Molly and Ramsey find out that the van they are looking for was ticketed in Baltimore City at "the corner of Pennington and Fifth," and they are looking at a computerized map of the area. However, the map can be easily matched up to the actual Mapquest map of the area around the corner of Fifth St. and Patapsco Ave., except that the latter has been relabeled as Pennington. There is a Pennington Ave. in Baltimore City, but it runs parallel to Fifth, about a mile east of it.

DavidK93

More Threshold factual errors
The Triangle picture

Show generally

Factual error: Haloclines are referred to throughout, and depicted occasionally as some sort of underwater tornadoes. Haloclines are in fact just salinity gradients, and look nothing like they do on the show.

Andrew Perry

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Weeds picture

Risk - S3-E13

Factual error: Nancy takes her son Silas to an 'underground' doctor used by gang members following an attack by a biker gang. After she tries to negotiate a lower price due to the lack of anesthetics, the doctor says that he can get a second opinion at a hospital and order a $10,000 MRI if she would rather pay for that. However, an X-Ray is the first, less-expensive method used by emergency rooms and trauma centers to confirm a fracture. An MRI is typically only used to evaluate skull/brain-related injuries, but is a rarer utilized, expensive second option to evaluate a fracture that generates an unclear X-ray.

Alexifish

More Weeds factual errors
Surface picture

Episode #1.13 - S1-E13

Factual error: When Rich and Laura are searching for drug information from the 1960s, they visit the US Patent Office website; under the heading "SSRIs", is displayed "Selecttive Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors" - with the double-t spelling error. (00:15:25)

David R Turner

More Surface factual errors

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