Numb3rs

Numb3rs (2005)

37 mistakes

(3 votes)

Prime Suspect - S1-E5

Continuity mistake: When Charlie Epps is writing a quadrillion on the whiteboard, the writing alternates between shots. Most noticably when he first writes it down, there is a significant downward tendency of the 000 groups. In the next shot, they are pretty much horizontal. Also the shapes of the commas alter.

Ronnie Bischof

Waste Not - S3-E9

Continuity mistake: Around the middle of the episode, Charlie Eppes and Mildred French are discussing in front of a board. She completes an equation and he adds a minus. In the next close shots, the minus disappears and reappears with angle changes. After three or four changes, a circle appears around the minus.

Protest - S2-E16

Continuity mistake: Season 2 - Episode 16 - "Protest": Near the end when the guy is threatening to drop the nitroglycerin, he drops the test-tube and it lands on a red mat. However, when the agent picks it up, there isn't a mat anywhere near the test-tube.

Ronnie Bischof

Numb3rs mistake picture

Brutus - S3-E10

Revealing mistake: Davis, the psychiatrist, is the second man to be killed. Although he was shot at five times, only the first two wounds, which are the highest, give blood, while the lower and later three do not.

Numb3rs mistake picture

Vector - S1-E3

Continuity mistake: While the mother is driving her children to school in a minivan, both the driver's seat and the front passenger seat change from having the headrest/whiplash protector being attached to the seats (non-removable), to having the adjustable kind that have been removed.

Killer Chat - S3-E11

Continuity mistake: While Charlie is talking to Dr. York on the phone, the camera is at a wide shot, notice that Larry's name tag is not behind Amita on the wall. When the camera cuts to single shot of Amita, Larry's name tag appears on the wall. Then, the camera cuts to a wide shot again, and the name tag disappears. (00:38:25)

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.

Counterfeit Reality - S1-E7

Factual error: The Secret Service agent says the bills are counterfeit because you can see the watermark under a uv light, which is completely wrong. The uv reactive strip is not a watermark, it's a plastic strip embedded between the two layers of the bill and fluoresces under uv as a security measure. In older bills, it glows blue as in the film. In newer ones, it glows yellow to orange and is on the right half of the bill. A fake bill would be the one that does not glow. (00:07:20)

zephalis

Magic Show - S5-E6

Continuity mistake: When David is outside the club being interviewed by the media, he comments that "We're in the middle of an investigation." However, when the statement is later played during news coverage, David noticeably stammers and says "we're" twice.

Show generally

Continuity mistake: In 'The Janus List' (324), when David gets mad at Colby for being a spy, he says "You're not a spy, you're a damn traitor". But, in 'Trust Metric' (401), when Don is reviewing the tapes of Colby's interrogation, David says "You're not a damn spy, you're a traitor".

In Plain Sight - S2-E8

Factual error: During the scene when Megan and the FBI are making the house entry, a scene cuts to two FBI agents, one with a M4 and another with a MP5. The agent with the MP5 has the magazine in his weapon installed backwards. (00:05:10)

Numb3rs mistake picture

Brutus - S3-E10

Continuity mistake: When Charlie is in his office talking to Larry, while going over the potential killers and victims, he writes the word "Killers" on the board and circles it. Then, when Charlie notices that Larry has left and says "gone", the writing is different. The 'k' is wider, and most noticeably, the left side of the circle is gone, and the loop in his 's' disappears. Once Charlie goes back to working, the word changes back to how it was originally written. (00:38:20)

Dirty Bomb - S1-E10

Factual error: Season 1, Episode 10, "Dirty Bomb": The opening figures refer to "500g of Nuclear Material." These are the wrong units to determine the hazard level in a radiological sample. The "Curie content" describes, roughly, how much radiation will be given off, and is not tied directly to the sample's mass. 500g of Cesium-137 (the isotope being discussed in the episode) could well be less radioactive than 1g of a different isotope.

Rooster of Doom

Harvest - S2-E14

Factual error: In one episode, there is a chase with the suspect driving an ambulance. The chase ends when the ambulance runs into and flips over a motionless taxi perpendicular to it, killing the suspect. There's no way this could happen, because at those speeds the impact would make the taxi flip over if anything.

Longshot - S3-E6

Continuity mistake: When the FBI goes to arrest Tabakien, his men try to stop them and Don slams one of the guys' heads into a plate. The plate breaks into several pieces spreading the food all over. After you see the other men being stopped, you see a shot of the first guy again. And you can see that the plate is mostly intact and the food is not spread around as much.

Pandora's Box - S3-E19

Other mistake: In the opening sequence, Colby tells Helm at the airplane crash site that all of the passenger bodies have been moved to the L.A. Coroner's Office. However, later in the scene, there are shrouded bodies on the ground outside the command center tent.

Sacrifice - S1-E11

Continuity mistake: When Charlie is comparing a computer wipe to a data scrubber, he first crosses out the equation"E=MC2" with a magic marker, beginning mostly with uniform, vertical lines, and then lightly scribbled. However, in a later shot in the sequence, the cross-out is different, being mostly scribbled, with few vertical lines.

Alan Eppes: Ah, I'm just a little nervous.
Terry Lake: Don't worry-everything looks wonderful. In fact, your son could learn a few things from you. Know where we went on our first date?
Don Eppes: All right, all right, all right, all right.
Terry Lake: The laundromat. Dinner was pizza.
Don Eppes: A little professionalism.
Alan Eppes: You don't say... How interesting.

More quotes from Numb3rs

Trivia: Judd Hirsch is an astro-physicist and can actually do the math Charlie does on the show. He caught the acting bug in school and chose that over physics.

More trivia for Numb3rs

In Plain Sight - S2-E8

Question: This question is about the mistake where a SWAT officer has a magazine backwards in his MP5. I know this would be impossible on a real weapon. But, how could it have happened in filming? Rubber cast weapon? Very badly worn prop weapon? Set armourer with a hammer and no clue?

More questions & answers from Numb3rs

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