Factual error: When Gris and Teri are looking at the bones that were found in the desert and discussing an electric saw, Teri is talking about the medial condyle of the femur but the bone they are looking at is the tibia (seen by the flatness of the tibial plateau - the femoral condyles are much more rounded, and the triangular shape of the shaft of the bone). It makes no difference to the story but having gone to the lengths to get the scaphoid and cuneform in the right place, it would have been nice not to get two major bones, that look completely different, mixed up.
Plot hole: Amanda Haynes is Lacey Duvall's murderer, however in the opening scene she was kissing Patrick Haynes at the party downstairs at the exact time Lacey fell into the pool. She could not have pushed Lacey upstairs. (00:01:16 - 00:41:29)
Continuity mistake: When Gil and Catherine catch the couple in the bedroom, they are all sitting in the living room. Amanda is drinking a soda and it is about half full. Gil then asks for the straw. When we look at the soda again, it's full.
Continuity mistake: While Sara is looking through missing person's files, Grissom comes in and starts talking to her. One shot her hair is in front of her face, the next it's behind her ear. This continues throughout the scene. (00:22:05)
Character mistake: Seven minutes into the show, Sarah Sidle is about to do an internal sexual assault exam/kit on an unconscious victim in the hospital, Sarah picks up a metal speculum and says aloud to the victim (in a presumed moment of empathy), that she "never really liked this part of my yearly exam. These things are always freezing" referring to the speculum in her hands. She then brings a speculum to her mouth and begins to blow open-mouthed on it two times, forcing her hot breath on it to warm it. She then begins to insert it into the victim as the scene cuts away. This is pure stupidity, as no trained CSI would ever contaminate the tool like this. Sarah just added her own DNA to the speculum via her breath so any saliva or body fluids are now on the speculum what she is about to use on this patient, who is now also exposed to any STDs from Sarah.
Continuity mistake: When Catherine and Warrick are testing to find the distance the shots were fired from, when Catherine shoots at the shirt that's 2 feet away there is no gunpowder around the hole. When Warrick puts the victim's shirt next to it, for comparison, there is now an inch of gunpowder around the hole.
Other mistake: The agent uses her remote to unlock her car in the parking garage. But during the closeup manually inserts the key in the lock.
$35K O.B.O. - S1-E18
Continuity mistake: In one shot Grissom puts a shoe on its side with a pencil. In the next shot the shoe is upright again.
Revealing mistake: At the end of the episode when they view flashbacks of what happened when Zack died, there is a scene when Tyler is performing CPR on Zack. You can see that Zack is a dummy. (00:39:55)
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)
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 first arrives at his own home, he turns on his stereo and adjusts one of the levels. In one shot, he uses his left index finger to push it up, but in the next, he is moving it with his right index finger and thumb.
