Continuity mistake: At the end of the episode Commissioner Selwyn Patterson warns Dwayne against equating him to farmyard animals. His hat switches hands during the scene, as you can see when he turns around to leave, and his left arm is down his side instead of bouncing the hat as shown in the next shot. (00:49:50)
Continuity mistake: During the denouement, in the close-ups of Mayor Joseph Richards he and especially JP in the background have strongly sunlit areas over their bodies. In the wider angles, the set is uniformly in shadows. (00:46:30)
Continuity mistake: When Richard has the epiphany about the case with the realization about the mayor, he keeps looking left and right and babbling with both markers in hand. The white one though in some shots has its red lid on, and in others hasn't. (00:32:00)
Continuity mistake: The whole sequence with Humphrey doing his 'visually aided' re-enactment of the night of the murder contains little shot-to-shot inconsistencies from the moment he takes the second whiteboard on. The photo switches hand, he leans to the top of the board when it's time to stick the picture on it, but the same hand is lower on the board at the cut, and so on; in some shots he's touching the board and in their reverse angles he is not. (00:35:40)
Continuity mistake: Martha and Florence are chatting in front of two glasses of wine, courtesy of Catherine. Martha's hand is at a different height, higher on the stem of the glass in one angle, lower against its base in the other main angle the scene is shot under. (00:20:35)
Continuity mistake: Florence and Humphrey take a walk with Emer Byrne. Behind them, a man with a rather noticeable orange T-shirt. Later in the scene when they go back to the jeep, the same man appears again together with the other guy he was chatting with, again walking back and forth just to pad the background. (00:16:00)
Continuity mistake: When Humphrey points out of the strangely lacking item amongst those lined up, the items in question change position between shots; when there's the shot of the whole row, the canteen is at an angle, it is parallel to the rest when the camera pans in close-up. The sandwich bag too is folded differently. (00:06:00)
Continuity mistake: DI Goodman is inspecting the pillows; when he gets to the second bunk bed, you can see that handling the pillow he accidentally catches with his arm a blue piece of clothing placed on the railing, dragging it a little along the way, towards the vertical support bar. The next shot is evidently from a previous take, because that blue rag is in the initial position, away from the bar. (00:39:10)
Continuity mistake: When Goodman sprints away from the banquet, the cue cards in Dwayne's hand move from both hands to a lowered left hand in the faraway shot. (00:38:40)
Continuity mistake: When Goodman jumps up yelling "yee-haaw!" messing the wedding table, Commissioner Patterson grabs a towel with his left, but at the cut he is using the right hand to clean his left. Likewise, Florence has in the second shot a hand on her chest, but she didn't have that pose already in the previous, it was just her initial reaction. (00:38:00)
Continuity mistake: Humphrey gets next to Leo's bed saying "Hey sexy." He has a hand in his pants and the other on the phone, but they swap place at the first cut. When he gets up and protests that he loved Sian, the phone disappears. (00:39:10)
Continuity mistake: After hearing about the theory that perhaps Sian and her knew each other from back home, Perrie Campbell walks away. Goodman grabs the manuscript from the table, but his arm does not move in the reverse shots. He then puts it back, but when it is his turn to stand up, it is nowhere to be seen - yet it didn't look like he could have put it back much far away. (00:16:55)
Continuity mistake: When Perrie Campbell says "Now I can see it", about the world out there, the bang on her right side is windblown. The wind is instantly absent in the next shot, just as in the rest of the shots from that angle. (00:16:35)
Continuity mistake: Dwayne has his fingers on a different spot of the evidence bag with the ecstasy when the camera angle changes. (00:15:05)
Continuity mistake: Humphrey brings attention to the toiletries when asked why does he not quite believe it was suicide; in close-up the bag is in shadow, but in the wider angle there was direct sunlight on the top of the bottles. (00:05:45)
Continuity mistake: When Perrie Campbell tells her much younger friend that she can still drink her under the table, a bottle of beer suddenly appears in her hand. During the rest of the exchange the beer bottle in Sian's hand faces different directions each shot. (00:01:05)
Continuity mistake: During the first scene, Sian Evans' hand is around the bottle of Etensel or flat on the table, depending on the angle. (00:00:45)
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the episode, Perrie shows the moth tattoo to Sian. In the close-up of the lepidoptera, Sian's elbow is barely off the corner of the table, but she's leaning with just the hand in the following shots. (00:00:40)
Continuity mistake: Addison Patrick pulls out of his pocket a bag with the coins. A string dangles off his palm, but when he hands it to Florence, the strap has been pulled up. (00:30:20)
Continuity mistake: Goodman calls it a day and mentions the stag party. Dwayne lays out on the desk three pair of handcuffs; the leftmost (the first he put down) is apart from the others, but when the lube comes into play, all three are clustered together. (00:22:35)
Answer: There's probably no particular reason. Sets and props on long-running TV shows often change as needed and for various reasons throughout a series run.
raywest ★