TV Show Mistakes That Didn’t Fly Under The Radar
Even when compared to movies, TV shows typically work according to tight deadlines while juggling similar production budgets. Anything can go wrong when filming content, but these conditions are practically a recipe for some pretty wild mistakes. Naturally, it’s practically impossible to make a TV show without at least one.
However, some of those mistakes escape containment and fans notice them. While some of them are bigger than others, they’re all a little embarrassing to the perfectionist. No show is perfect but some of those imperfections can be fascinatingly glaring.
The Sopranos (1999-2007)
During Season 1 episode “Isabella,” Tony Soprano survives an assassination attempt after two men try to shoot him while he’s getting into his car. After his first assailant is accidentally vanquished by his partner after he and Tony wrestle with his gun, Tony manages to grapple with the second gunman in a similar fashion.
During their scuffle, however, it becomes clear that the second hitman’s gun doesn’t have a magazine in it. At best, this means that only the shot that killed his partner was in the gun. At worst, even that shot should have been impossible, depending on the make of the pistol. Either way, that’s more likely to be the production’s mistake than the character’s mistake.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000-2015)
While most of the biggest TV mistakes are limited to a specific episode, CSI has a consistent one that shows up multiple times throughout the series. Namely, a surprising amount of technicians in the show end up eating in the lab, with specific examples concerning Nick and Greg eating fried chicken in “Miss Willows’ Regrets” and Sara eating a sandwich in “Overload.”
It’s likely meant to show how much their jobs have steeled their nerves, but it really just shows the lab as far more incompetently run than it’s intended to me. After all, a genuinely respectable lab would never permit people to eat while handling human remains, both because it’s a health hazard to the technician and likely to contaminate their samples.
Game Of Thrones (2011-2019)
Although a show as elaborate and expensive as Game of Thrones is bound to rack up mistakes over its eight seasons, one somehow became large enough to be a cultural phenomenon.
As represented in this tapestry — itself a demonstration of how far the phenomenon went — a coffee cup from Starbucks was spotted on a table during the fourth episode of the show’s maligned final season. Obviously, this presents a problem because it’s both too modern and indicative of our world to appear in what is otherwise medieval Westeros.
Breaking Bad (2008-2013)
In the Breaking Bad episode “Seven Thirty-Seven,” Jesse’s car pulls up to Walter’s house, only to reveal the unpredictable and dangerous Tuco Salamanca in the back seat. He tells Walter to get in, and once he does, the car pulls away while the camera pans to a shot of Walter’s street.
However, this shot ended up breaking the illusion of the setting, as Walter’s family is supposed to live on Negra Arroyo Lane. However, the viewer can instead see a street sign saying, “Piermont,” as the house’s real location was on Piermont Drive in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Prison Break (2005-2017)
There are a lot of details writers can miss when they’re resuming a show nine years later, and that’s exactly the embarrassment that arose when Prison Break received a fifth and final season in 2017 after being off the air since 2008.
In the season 4 finale, Michael’s grave was located near a beach in South America and displayed his date of death as November 4, 2005. In the first episode of the fifth season, however, his death date is suddenly November 4, 2010, and the grave is now apparently in New York. Those are some big details to forget.
Friends (1994-2004)
While some sitcoms will occasionally employ enough meta humor to show the sets behind the TV show’s most familiar locations, others break the illusion by accident. That’s exactly what happened in the Friends episode “The One With Rachel’s Date,” which sees Ross visit Chandler at his office before they both head out to the Hard Rock Cafe.
However, once Chandler leaves, it’s clear that the camera panned a little too far to the right. That’s because the edge of the set can be seen, as well as Chandler’s arm poking out of the other side of it.
The Walking Dead (2010-2022)
In the season 5 episode “Consumed,” Daryl finds himself in a precarious position to escape some zombies, as he has to drive an ambulance off the edge of a parking garage. Indeed, it’s hard not to experience the dread with him, as the ambulance gives every indication that it’s about to land on its roof.
However, the next scene somehow shows the ambulance landing on its wheels. This suggests that at some point during its descent, the ambulance suddenly gained the right momentum to perform a front flip. The existence of zombies is easier to swallow than that marvel of physics.
The Twilight Zone (1959-1964)
Although the Twilight Zone showed true imagination and creativity in its episodes’ premises, the show couldn’t always commit to those premises fully. For instance, a man discovers a stopwatch that can freeze time in “A Kind Of Stopwatch,” which eventually compels him to rob a bank without anyone having a chance of spotting him.
This crime involved going through a small wooden door and slipping past the bank’s employees. Since time is frozen, the door should stay open and in the position he left it in when he moves through it. However, it immediately swings shut once he passes through it instead.
Grey’s Anatomy (2005-)
It’s easy to underestimate how hard it can be to act in a medical drama, as it often involves memorizing the names of complicated diseases and medical techniques that the actors themselves typically don’t understand. While that makes mistakes understandable, one in particular from Grey’s Anatomy is still a little embarrassing.
In the episode “Throwing It All Away,” Arizona expresses concern about a child’s liver failure in the opening scenes, saying that it leaves them at risk of psoriasis. She meant cirrhosis, the medical term for a life-threatening liver disease. Even if there was a link between liver failure and a skin issue like psoriasis, it would be the least of her concerns.
The Golden Girls (1985-1992)
Throughout the latter seasons of The Golden Girls, Rose Nylund pursues a relationship with a man named Miles. In the Season 6 episode “Miles To Go,” Miles reveals to her that he’s been living under the Witness Protection Program, meaning that he’s been completely cut off from everyone in his past, including his family.
Unfortunately, it seems the writers clung onto this idea before they checked to see if it contradicted anything they wrote about Miles before. That’s because it was only in the previous season when Miles’s daughter visited and made it clear that she didn’t approve of Rose.
The Office (2005-2013)
Throughout The Office, poor Toby is often ignored when he isn’t being completely disrespected by Michael Scott. Unfortunately, it seems that the character was as much of an afterthought to the show’s writers as he was to its characters. That becomes clear in the episode “Last Day In Florida.”
This Season 8 episode sees Toby and Darryl competing to sell Girl Scout cookies, and at one point, Toby mentions that it’s his daughter’s first year selling them. However, in an earlier episode from a previous season, when Dwight asks him to sign his apology letter, Toby only agrees on the condition that Dwight buys his daughter’s Girl Scout cookies.
House M.D. (2004-2012)
During the season 1 episode “Kids,” Dr. House is examining his whiteboard and puzzling about an affliction that a 12-year-old patient who was swimming before she was brought in is dealing with. One of the terms written on this whiteboard is “intercranial hemorrhage.”
The problem with this term is that there’s no such thing, as it would involve an episode of bleeding between separate brains, rather than the “intracranial hemorrhage” that one brain can experience. The difference between “inter” and “intra” is a common source of confusion for people, but it shouldn’t be for a doctor of House’s expertise and attention to detail.
Parks And Recreation (2009-2015)
In the season 4 episode “The Treaty,” Tom is taking a call on his cell phone in Ron’s office. However, the production turned out to miss an important detail that the phone itself couldn’t help but give away.
When Tom holds the phone at an angle during his conversation, its home screen shifts with his movement. With them turns the speaker and “end call” buttons that Tom could supposedly access during his call. Only photos turn like this to adjust with the phone’s movements, which reveals that Tom was talking to a picture of his home screen rather than actually making a call.
The Big Bang Theory (2007-2019)
Throughout season 5, a pretty major plot line concerns Howard going into space. Although his return is safe, anxiety and excitement hang over his friends and family until it’s all over, at which point he spends a long period processing what he just did. Indeed, it should be a shock to him because there’s no way it would be allowed to happen.
This is because Howard lives with a cardiac arrhythmia, which would have been easily detected by a routine electrocardiogram and prevented him from even beginning astronaut training. Add that to the stress and trauma he experienced during training, and there’s no way a journey into space would have been deemed safe for his heart or psyche.
Monk (2002-2009)
In the episode “Mr. Monk Goes To Jail,” Monk visits a prison and is searched, which triggers his obsessive-compulsive disorder due to the intimate way that unfamiliar hands were touching him. This leads his partner, Sharona, to comfort him by putting her arms around him. The guards don’t do anything about this, but that’s not how it would work in real life.
Sharona hadn’t been searched yet, which means that, regardless of her intention, she would have gotten Monk searched yet again by giving the guards the impression that she passed him contraband. Prison guards have an exact procedure in place to prevent this possibility, and they’re being monitored while they execute it. Even if they were inclined to make an exception for Monk, the people watching the guards wouldn’t be.
