Continuity mistake: Season 5, episode 11 'Who shot Sherlock?'. In the scene where Sara Sidle sits down at the victims desk and computer, in the first shot you see the top corner of the notebook lid, saying IBM, then when you see the screen it says DELL on the bottom of it, and then in the next shot you once again see the lid with the IBM mark.
Factual error: Brown and Stokes are investigating a mysterious fatal accident involving a Jeep and a downed power line. They state that the driver would have been safe if the Jeep had made contact with the power line because the tires would have insulated the Jeep from the electrical current. Wrong. First, a car is a Faraday cage, that is an electrical current would pass on the outside of a car on the way to the ground. As long as you don't touch the outer surface, you are safe. Second, tires are (almost always now) steel belted radials and conduct electricity nicely. Lastly, it was an open top Jeep. The power line made contact with the roll bar thereby electrifying the inner surface of the Jeep. The driver is in contact with the inner surface. This is a list, from one year from one utility company, of people that died from contact with power lines. You will see that tires exploded from the contact and some caught fire. http://www.sigalarminc.com/HistoricalNotes.htm.
Continuity mistake: In the scene where Warrick pulls the piece of clothing from the toilet, the amount of water and dirt in the bowl changes between each shot. (00:14:00)
Other mistake: In the flashback that shows Adam Brenner playing his opponent using the word "Exvin", we can see that the X is also used in "Juxtapose". When the opponent adds an S to "Exvin", he is challenged and made to take back his tiles. However, the X would remain where it is because it is a part of another word. Since the opponent plays a word using an X later in the game ("Loxodrome"), we know that he must have taken back the X as well. However, that cannot be the case as then "Juxtapose" would not be able to stand without the X. He couldn't play it as part of "Exvin" due to the existence of the word Antothenics underneath Juxtapose.
Suggested correction: I think they were implying that he played a second ex and that's what prompted them to look to see which tiles were missing from the suspects game. Since there were two x's used in the game and there's only X in each set it implies they thought someone was bringing tiles in from another set, and then they looked at the suspect set to see if any tiles were missing.
Factual error: Brown states that silencers are not able to be purchased and are illegal. Not true. A silencer can be legally purchased providing the proper forms are completed with the ATF.
Other mistake: Episode 18 Season 5 "Spark of Life": Late in this episode, the CSI crew is sitting around discussing the case. Sarah Sidle summarizes the facts in the case, including making the comment that Tara Matthews was attacked by the truck driver "just before her death"; in actuality, while Tara was severely burned, she remained alive in the hospital throughout the entire episode.
Continuity mistake: When Nick is staring intently at the doctors lapel area, the camera zooms in and we see some lint on the doctors left lapel. When Nick asks Catherine to get the tape on it, Catherine approaches the suspect and she starts to put the tape on the left lapel, but when the camera zooms in for a close-up of her getting the lint, the tape is being applied to the RIGHT lapel.
Plot hole: Lizzie had the car towed to icebox canyon. When you see her watching the car being lowered onto Sara, there is no tow truck there, there is no sound of any machinery lowering the car, and when the shot pans back there is nothing there that would have helped her move the car. She is not strong enough to hold up a car, put an unconscious person under it while holding it up, and then lower it without some kind of winch.
Cool Change - S1-E2
Revealing mistake: The male corpse's eye is fluttering as his arm is examined. (00:10:30)
Continuity mistake: While Kelly is being interrogated in the interview room by Nick, her hair changes between shots. Close-up it hangs loose. In the wide shots both sides are tucked behind her ears.
Continuity mistake: The DB in the desert is in funeral pose. Sarah notices something on his hands, which are layed one on the other in a close shot. Cut to a wide shot and the top hand is off the other. Cut again to a close shot and it is once again atop the other.
Continuity mistake: In the bit where Nick and Warrick decide who is going in the pool, Nick loses and begins to remove his top while still wearing his latex gloves. The camera switches to a different angle and while he is still taking his top off, his gloves have disappeared.
Pirates of the Third Reich - S6-E16
Factual error: The Titan arum, corpse flower, has some problems in this episode. First, the flower grows naturally in the tropical forests of Sumatra. It is not very likely to survive sitting on a bench in the arid desert sun of Nevada. Second, Brown and Stokes track the smell of decomposing flesh to the flowers on the bench. The question is asked who would have a corpse flower besides someone trying to cover the smell of a decomposing body. To start with, none of the plants shown are flowering. The corpse flowers stench comes about when the flower opens. Then there is the rarity of the bloom itself. The botanical gardens around the world with corpse flowers make a very big event out of the bloom. Also, the bloom lasts no more than 36 hours. And then there is the stench of the bloom itself. That stench lasts no more than 8 hours. All this makes it useless to try to hide the smell of dead bodies with this plant and makes it impossible for Brown to state the plants are giving off the odor of decomp.
Continuity mistake: When Grissom enters the cage in which the woman is found, he goes to the wastebasket to examine the pen that rolled on the floor. As he first picks it up, he grasps it right at the point where the black grip section meets the gray barrel section. As the shot changes and he continues bringing it up to examine it, he is now grasping it near the end of the gray barrel. As it is supposed to be a continuous shot (conversation is uninterrupted the entire time), there is no time for him to change his hand position.
Factual error: The treasury officer stated that the couple was from "Las Vegas County". Anyone from the government (local/county/state/federal) should know Las Vegas is in 'Clark County'. Sara (who works for LVMPD/Clark County) did not react at all.
Plot hole: A head without a body is found early in the show. Then, a body that has been decapitated, skinned, and severed of hands and feet is found. The CSI team assume the two are related until the coroner states that the body isn't even human. He also mentions that he has no idea what kind of animal it is and they'll need to consult an anthropologist. Everyone is shocked to learn the body is that of a gorilla. The body is humanoid (2 arms, 2 legs). It is larger than human size. The only thing it can possibly be is a gorilla. It must be a primate for having a humanoid shape and must be a gorilla because that is the only primate larger than man. There was no need to bring in an anthropologist (which should have been a zoologist if they truly had NO idea what kind of animal it was). It should have been painfully obvious to the CSI team, who are experts in all fields, that the body was a gorilla.
Revealing mistake: Ribbons is talking to Grissom and Nick in the autopsy room, and the latest post autopsy female lies on the table. Grissom says, "He choked her unconscious, and brought her..." and when the shot faces her head and shoulders, watch her neck - you can see the veins in her neck pumping. (00:06:45)
Continuity mistake: When Grissom's car window is broken in the first shot where you first see the break there is hardly any glass left in the frame and yet when he is at the gas station there is an almost perfect circle of broken glass and a lot more in the frame.
Continuity mistake: Nick is eating a hot dog when he's handed a warrant. Depending on the camera angle, he goes from taking a bite out of the hot dog to holding the hot dog in one hand and the warrant in the other simply with camera angle changes.
Continuity mistake: When Sara is trying to match up bite plates. In the first two close-up shots of Sara's face, you can see an out-of-focus shot of Greg's sleeve on the right side of the screen, seconds before he actually appears in the scene.
