# Official "That show's continuity is messed up" thread



## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Since there has been various discussions on shows messing up continuity, location malfunctions and so on, most recently in the Covert Affairs thread, I thought I would start this thread to discuss. Remember, be careful to spoilerize anything you think might give away a key plot point

So, I'll start:

In Person's Unknown:



Spoiler



When Janet is supposed to be driven "to the border" from San Francisco, she passes a road sign for US Route 1. Well I don't know what border she's going to, but she's definitely taking the LONG way. US Route 1 runs along the east coast from Florida to Maine.



Any others?


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

In the movie Commando, after Arnold rams and flips Sully's yellow porsche it's all smashed up. Then he flips it back over and as he drives off, there is no damage on the car. 

I also noticed in an episode of 24 a few years back that Jack gets into a gun fight behind a car and the windows are shot out. As he drives away, the windows mysteriously returned.


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## Fool Me Twice (Jul 6, 2004)

In one episode of Cheers Norm was sipping a beer that was 1/2 full. They cut to a different angle and it was 5/8 full! How does that happen? Took me right out of the moment.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Fool Me Twice said:


> In one episode of Cheers Norm was sipping a beer that was 1/2 full. They cut to a different angle and it was 5/8 full! How does that happen? Took me right out of the moment.


:up:

I love it!! Yeah, people let this stuff bother them to the point of it ruins their enjoyment of the show. Most times I don't even notice stuff. And even when I do, if it's a show I like, I couldn't care less. It's just fun to spot sometimes.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Steveknj said:


> In Person's Unknown:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Probably intended to be Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) in California.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Probably intended to be Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) in California.


Well that's what I was thinking, but it clearly was a US 1 road sign


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## Cainebj (Nov 11, 2006)

I live in Manhattan - it always disturbs me with on-location NYC shoots where the actors are in one place and then turn a corner and are in a completely different neighborhood.

I don't have any specific examples, but the last season of 24 in Manhattan drove me nuts. But of course, I wish I could go 24 hours without peeing.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Cainebj said:


> I live in Manhattan - it always disturbs me with on-location NYC shoots where the actors are in one place and then turn a corner and are in a completely different neighborhood.


Decades ago, my parents had a vacation condo on Kauai (before it got totally developed). There was a movie that was set there whose name I can't recall; it was basically a Seven Samurai riff notable mostly for the fact that it did the Indiana Jones "Hi-yah my ass" gag before Indiana Jones. But there was one part where they were in a car chase on the road that went past my parents' condo complex, and then around a corner. In real life, when you go around that corner, you end up heading down a narrow mountain road into a vast, spectacular valley. In the movie, suddenly they were pulling into town on the opposite side of the island.

That was the first time I noticed that kind of continuity...well, "mistake" isn't right, since they must have known what they were doing; no car chase that went past point A could end up at Point B (the road didn't go all the way around the island in that direction). So, continuity decision.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

IMDB has reasonably detailed lists of this sort of thing for pretty much every movie and TV series.

Of course, there are two "classes" of continuity breaks that are so common that they pretty much can be skipped:

Animated shows where nobody gets older, but time passes normally (especially when they reference things that happened "years ago" in past episodes, even though the characters were the same ages then as they are now - for example, on _The Simpsons_, when Sideshow Bob returns, they used to have Bart or Lisa provide a "recap" of what he did in the past, including mentioning in what year it happened);

Shows where kids are born in one season and then are 4 or 5 years old in the next (I think Little Ricky on _I Love Lucy_ was the first; the last one I can think of off the top of my head was on _The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air_, but at least they referenced it on the show by having Will do a double-take when the older boy first appears, followed by another double-take when his aunt appears, as the character's actress had changed between seasons).
Probably the most famous continuity error of reasonably recent times was Richie's older brother Chuck on _Happy Days_ - not only did he disappear, but subsequent episodes actually had Richie's parents mention that he was their only son. (Something similar happened with Joe's son on _Family Guy_, but they had closure when Joe's wife Bonnie finally gave birth, and when Peter asked Joe what had happened to his son, Joe said that he had died in Iraq.)

Does continuity from a show to a spinoff count? On _Family Guy_, Cleveland's son Cleveland Jr. was thin and athletic, but on _The Cleveland Show_, he's obese.

-- Don


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

Cainebj said:


> I live in Manhattan - it always disturbs me with on-location NYC shoots where the actors are in one place and then turn a corner and are in a completely different neighborhood.
> 
> I don't have any specific examples, but the last season of 24 in Manhattan drove me nuts. But of course, I wish I could go 24 hours without peeing.


we just laugh at Fringe since like each episode they mention at least ONE town in MASS, and more times than not it is horribly wrong

they put the town next to me on the South Shoreline and it's like 45 min from water.

And one time they showed a map of Brighton and said a warehouse was there, and I used to live right around the corner, the warehouse is a sub shop


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## cheesesteak (Jul 24, 2003)

MikeMar said:


> we just laugh at Fringe since like each episode they mention at least ONE town in MASS, and more times than not it is horribly wrong


There was one Fringe episode where they drove from Boston to Lansdale, Pa about three times, like it's an hour drive. Lansdale is outside of Philly.


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

Restaurant or bar scenes in any movie or TV show are always horrible in regards to continuity.

Glass half full, then full, then almost empty, then back to half full.

I've even seen background extras change from shot to shot, I guess Extra #12 wasn't available for reshooting.

I'm always catching shirt tucked, untucked, back tucked again or button done, undone, back done in shot changes.
Bugs my kids to no end when I have to rewind and show them.


phox


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

Army Wives used to film at a diner I ate lunch at most weeks. It was a bar in the tv show.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

One of my "favorite" time gap continuity issues is from M*A*S*H. In the first or second episode of the series, they flash on the screen, Korea, 1952. Many seasons later, with a whole host of new characters, they do an episode about a bet that is made by Winchester about the outcome of the famous Giants-Dodger pennant race which ended in Bobby Thomson's HR (the shot heard round the world). That happened in 1951. So somehow, Trapper left and Henry Blake died in the future, even though they were replaced in the pace with new characters


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## Stormspace (Apr 13, 2004)

In every episode of Dukes of Hazzard the front end of the car gets bent all out of shape after making the obligatory jump, yet they always drive away with no damage.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> One of my "favorite" time gap continuity issues is from M*A*S*H. In the first or second episode of the series, they flash on the screen, Korea, 1952. Many seasons later, with a whole host of new characters, they do an episode about a bet that is made by Winchester about the outcome of the famous Giants-Dodger pennant race which ended in Bobby Thomson's HR (the shot heard round the world). That happened in 1951. So somehow, Trapper left and Henry Blake died in the future, even though they were replaced in the pace with new characters


There was another backwards jump. IIRC, at the end of the first episode of the season after Colonel Blake died, they announce Colonel Potter's arrival, and mention a date in September, 1952; it takes place before Major Houlihan has met her future husband. However, a later episode takes place during the 1952 Summer Olympics, which were held before the mentioned date, and Col. Penobscott is there. (They had already gotten divorced by the time the "1951 episode" took place.)

I used to joke that the last episode of M*A*S*H wouldn't deal with the end of the war, but the beginning.

Speaking of backwards jumps, an early episode of Hogan's Heroes takes place on D-Day, which was in 1944, but later episodes take place in 1943.

- Don


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Fool Me Twice said:


> In one episode of Cheers Norm was sipping a beer that was 1/2 full. They cut to a different angle and it was 5/8 full! How does that happen?


Regurg ... aka Backwash. 



MikeMar said:


> we just laugh at Fringe since like each episode they mention at least ONE town in MASS, and more times than not it is horribly wrong
> 
> they put the town next to me on the South Shoreline and it's like 45 min from water.
> 
> And one time they showed a map of Brighton and said a warehouse was there, and I used to live right around the corner, the warehouse is a sub shop


That's not technically a "continuity" issue. Since it's a fictional story, they get some artistic license on locations. But if they are driving in pitch dark one moment and then daylight n the next, then back to night, that would count.

Speaking of time of day continuity errors, in the last season of "Dexter" (S04E08), Dex prepares his kill room, then goes to collect his prey from the room next door. The foreground shows a clock radio on the nightstand reading 4:45 AM as Dex leaves. He goes out to the parking lot and it is pitch black outside. The voiceover says his prey is "within walking distance". The next scene, by the blue sky and shadows indicating the position of the sun, it is clearly around 10 am. But even if it was 8 am, that was one long walk!


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

In "Bullitt", Steve McQueen is in a car chase sequence, and as the car takes a hard left turn on a gravel road, the hubcap goes flying off, but is magically back in place in the next shot.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

getreal said:


> Speaking of time of day continuity errors, in the last season of "Dexter" (S04E08), Dex prepares his kill room, then goes to collect his prey from the room next door. The foreground shows a clock radio on the nightstand reading 4:45 AM as Dex leaves. He goes out to the parking lot and it is pitch black outside. The voiceover says his prey is "within walking distance". The next scene, by the blue sky and shadows indicating the position of the sun, it is clearly around 10 am. But even if it was 8 am, that was one long walk!


That's a pretty big technical problem. Shooting at sunrise/sunset is difficult because A) the lighting is harder to begin with than full day or full night, since the natural light keeps changing, which means that between takes you have to adjust the lighting to compensate; and B) you have a limited time before it becomes full day or full night. That's why in the movies or TV it tends to go from day to night or vice versa very quickly. Twilight just doesn't last long enough for a major scene to be shot, which means it has to be done over multiple days. Unless you have a pretty good budget and/or the timing of the scene is crucial, it's generally not worth it.


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## getreal (Sep 29, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> That's a pretty big technical problem. Shooting at sunrise/sunset is difficult because A) the lighting is harder to begin with than full day or full night, since the natural light keeps changing, which means that between takes you have to adjust the lighting to compensate; and B) you have a limited time before it becomes full day or full night. That's why in the movies or TV it tends to go from day to night or vice versa very quickly. Twilight just doesn't last long enough for a major scene to be shot, which means it has to be done over multiple days. Unless you have a pretty good budget and/or the timing of the scene is crucial, it's generally not worth it.


I get that. But if I was directing, I would shoot those scenes out of sequence. The major outdoor scene at sunset would have been wrapped, then the next morning I would shoot the scene in the parking lot, as it was a short scene and could match the time of morning from the scene already in the can. The kill room scene was indoors, so it could be done on a set and the clock radio could have been set to match the time more closely. Then it would all play out seamlessly.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

getreal said:


> I get that. But if I was directing, I would shoot those scenes out of sequence. The major outdoor scene at sunset would have been wrapped, then the next morning I would shoot the scene in the parking lot, as it was a short scene and could match the time of morning from the scene already in the can. The kill room scene was indoors, so it could be done on a set and the clock radio could have been set to match the time more closely. Then it would all play out seamlessly.


The problem is, they have to weigh the value of "getting right" against the extra time and expense involved. And you better believe that when they were scheduling that episode's shooting, they made a conscious decision that in that case, it wasn't worth it. That's why we see that kind of thing so very often in TV and movies. because the extra expense of doing a for-real twilight scene isn't deemed to be worth it.

To put it another way, if you were the director shooting those scenes out of sequence to get it right, which other scene in that episode would you have cut to make it fit within your schedule and budget?


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

That Don Guy said:


> Does continuity from a show to a spinoff count? On _Family Guy_, Cleveland's son Cleveland Jr. was thin and athletic, but on _The Cleveland Show_, he's obese.


He's some years older on "The Cleveland Show" than he was in his appearances on "Family Guy." I think the official explanation is that, as he got older, his metabolism slowed down. Way down.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

MikeMar said:


> we just laugh at Fringe since like each episode they mention at least ONE town in MASS, and more times than not it is horribly wrong
> 
> they put the town next to me on the South Shoreline and it's like 45 min from water.
> 
> And one time they showed a map of Brighton and said a warehouse was there, and I used to live right around the corner, the warehouse is a sub shop


If it's the one I remember, they referenced Stoughton as where the warehouse with the giant bridge over the water was, and Stoughton is land-locked.


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## marksman (Mar 4, 2002)

The Oasis Motel was used in at least one episode of The Good Guys as being in Dallas, but it is actually located in Arlington.

I know that to Hollywood types that they think Dallas/Fort Worth is all just Dallas, but it is unlikely that Dallas cops would be kicking down doors to a Arlington Motel on their own.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Decades ago, my parents had a vacation condo on Kauai (before it got totally developed). There was a movie that was set there whose name I can't recall; it was basically a Seven Samurai riff notable mostly for the fact that it did the Indiana Jones "Hi-yah my ass" gag before Indiana Jones. But there was one part where they were in a car chase on the road that went past my parents' condo complex, and then around a corner. In real life, when you go around that corner, you end up heading down a narrow mountain road into a vast, spectacular valley. In the movie, suddenly they were pulling into town on the opposite side of the island.
> 
> That was the first time I noticed that kind of continuity...well, "mistake" isn't right, since they must have known what they were doing; no car chase that went past point A could end up at Point B (the road didn't go all the way around the island in that direction). So, continuity decision.


I wouldn't call that a continuity problem. If you're going to classify that as continuity, then you could find the same issue with pretty much every single movie and TV show that ever shot on location.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> I wouldn't call that a continuity problem. If you're going to classify that as continuity, then you could find the same issue with pretty much every single movie and TV show that ever shot on location.


I know...I was just responding to a similar comment with a cute story.

You'll notice I called it a continuity decision, not a continuity mistake.


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## Snappa77 (Feb 14, 2004)

MikeMar said:


> we just laugh at Fringe since like each episode they mention at least ONE town in MASS, and more times than not it is horribly wrong
> 
> they put the town next to me on the South Shoreline and it's like 45 min from water.
> 
> And one time they showed a map of Brighton and said a warehouse was there, and I used to live right around the corner, the warehouse is a sub shop





dianebrat said:


> If it's the one I remember, they referenced Stoughton as where the warehouse with the giant bridge over the water was, and Stoughton is land-locked.




Fringe always makes me crack up.


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

SMALLVILLE seems to have a real major continuity glitch coming up. (Not that similar things haven't happened before.)

Seems Clark's Kryptonian cousin Kara will be appearing again, but...



Spoiler



...she's going to use her powers in public, and end up being revealed to the world as "Supergirl". Thing is, she was already known in Smallville as Clark's cousin Kara Kent, and in neither case is/was a disguise involved. Anyone who knew Kara Kent would recognize her immediately. I'm hoping the writers have some explanation as to how nobody will make the connection, but I'm not hopeful.


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## scooterboy (Mar 27, 2001)

gastrof said:


> SMALLVILLE seems to have a real major continuity glitch coming up. (Not that similar things haven't happened before.)
> 
> Seems Clark's Kryptonian cousin Kara will be appearing again, but...
> 
> ...





Spoiler



For 9 seasons we've all been wondering the same thing about Clark himself, once he finally puts on the suit (which has been shown in a preview - or is that actually Kara's suit?). Other than a couple of episodes, he hasn't worn any "magic glasses" so why isn't everyone in Smallville going to recognize him as Supes when his day comes?


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

scooterboy said:


> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> For 9 seasons we've all been wondering the same thing about Clark himself, once he finally puts on the suit (which has been shown in a preview - or is that actually Kara's suit?). Other than a couple of episodes, he hasn't worn any "magic glasses" so why isn't everyone in Smallville going to recognize him as Supes when his day comes?





Spoiler



In Clark's case, how he'll go to the glasses and not have anyone recognize that Superman is how Clark used to look is yet to be explained.

The thing with Kara will happen right off the bat, tho'. She's even going to create the Linda Danvers identity for herself so's to HAVE a secret identity from now on. That won't erase people's memories of Kara Kent, tho', or the fact that the flying girl being interviewed on TV looks just like her.

Again, I'm hoping for a decent explanation, but not holding my breath.


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## 702 (Feb 9, 2003)

That Don Guy said:


> IMDB has reasonably detailed lists of this sort of thing for pretty much every movie and TV series.
> 
> Of course, there are two "classes" of continuity breaks that are so common that they pretty much can be skipped:
> 
> ...


Roseane with the Becky character. Though they made fun of themselves.


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## 702 (Feb 9, 2003)

CSI Season 1. Don't remember the show, but they said you take I-93 to get to Hoover Dam. I quit watching right there. (You take US93)


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

So, on a more general question about continuity. Do productions have "continuity masters" who's job it is to make sure things like this don't happen? Small things like the hubcap thing in Bullit don't bother me that much, and in fact, I'd probably not notice it, but the M*A*S*H thing really did. Ignoring Chuck Cunningham really did. Do the producers even realize stuff like that happened?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

The script continuity person (yes, that's a job) is responsible for the scene-to-scene stuff. The writers, script editors, and producers are responsible for the big-picture stuff. And I'll bet when big-picture problems happen, it's mostly lack of communication...either too many cooks in the kitchen, or turnover (i.e., maybe somebody started working on Happy Days later in the show and never knew that Chuck ever existed...we have to remember that we're fans of these shows, but for most of the people who work on it it's just a job, and they may not know anything about a long-running show when they sign on).


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## Philosofy (Feb 21, 2000)

Are we talking scene to scene, or the span of the show? In Monk, an early episode had Monk meeting and falling in love with Trudy in college. In the finale, it said Trudy had a baby from an affair with a judge she was clerking for in law school, before she met Adrian.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> The script continuity person (yes, that's a job) is responsible for the scene-to-scene stuff. The writers, script editors, and producers are responsible for the big-picture stuff. And I'll bet when big-picture problems happen, it's mostly lack of communication...either too many cooks in the kitchen, or turnover (i.e., maybe somebody started working on Happy Days later in the show and never knew that Chuck ever existed...we have to remember that we're fans of these shows, but for most of the people who work on it it's just a job, and they may not know anything about a long-running show when they sign on).


If it were MY job, I would want to get it right, wouldn't you? I would think that there has to be some sort of chart somewhere with characters and story lines that any writer could refer to. I just think that, for the most part, stuff is ignored as a convenience to a certain script, and the hope is that the fans either won't notice or won't care. Writing out Chuck in HD didn't ruin my enjoyment of the show (change in format and bad writing did), but did annoy me.


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> ...Writing out Chuck in HD didn't ruin my enjoyment of the show (change in format and bad writing did), but did annoy me.


Don't know about the others, but you've lost me.

You're talking about onscreen logos and such?

What in the world does that have to do with continuity issues in storylines, the theme of this thread?


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

702 said:


> Roseane with the Becky character. Though they made fun of themselves.


That's not exactly a continuity problem, as both Beckys were the same age and looked similar. (The same with the "two Darrens" on Bewitched, and the daughter on Back To You.) You can make a case for Chris on The Partridge Family, as they replaced a brunette with a blonde. Something similar happened on Phyllis.

Here's another "one season to the next" continuity error (either that, or something happened that they just didn't bother explaining); at the end of the next-to-last season of Petticoat Junction, Betty Jo was pregnant, but she was never pregnant (nor had she given birth again) in the last season and the pregnancy was never even mentioned.

-- Don


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

gastrof said:


> Don't know about the others, but you've lost me.
> 
> You're talking about onscreen logos and such?
> 
> What in the world does that have to do with continuity issues in storylines, the theme of this thread?


HD = Happy Days, not HD = High Definition.


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## cstelter (Mar 18, 2002)

Steveknj said:


> Writing out Chuck in HD didn't ruin my enjoyment of the show (change in format and bad writing did), but did annoy me.





gastrof said:


> Don't know about the others, but you've lost me.
> 
> You're talking about onscreen logos and such?
> 
> What in the world does that have to do with continuity issues in storylines, the theme of this thread?


Allow me to parse 

'Writing out Chuck' means writing him out of the series, not writing it out onscreen.

'HD' means 'Happy Days' not 'High Definition'

I just watched a Happy Days 30th reunion show from about 5 years ago that was being rebroadcast on something like Bio. They made fun of the whole Chuck thing-- they actually had *two* different actors play the role and then mentioned that Richie was the only son. They showed clips of both actors playing the role and the clip of Marion saying the 'only son' bit. They even brought both actors on the 'reunion' set.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

And "format of the show" means its structure, not just logos etc.


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## MegaHertz67 (Apr 18, 2005)

Cainebj said:


> I live in Manhattan - it always disturbs me with on-location NYC shoots where the actors are in one place and then turn a corner and are in a completely different neighborhood.
> 
> I don't have any specific examples, but the last season of 24 in Manhattan drove me nuts. But of course, I wish I could go 24 hours without peeing.


I live in Miami and Miami Vice was horrible about that. The turn a corner on South Beach and end up at a warehouse near the airport.

Burn Notice does a slightly better job, but I think it's because the budget is smaller and the locations aren't as ambitious.

CSI Miami is shot in LA with only a few weeks of on location shooting done for the entire season. All of the really pretty panoramas are shot by helicopter at the beginning of shooting and recycled throughout the season. In fact CSI Miami is guilty of constantly driving AWAY from South Beach on one of the causeways when the characters are supposed to be going TO South Beach.

Dexter is also shot in LA and has absolutely no continuity whatsoever. Doesn't even try very hard.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

gastrof said:


> SMALLVILLE seems to have a real major continuity glitch coming up. (Not that similar things haven't happened before.)
> 
> Seems Clark's Kryptonian cousin Kara will be appearing again, but...


Laura Vandervoort is a regular in "V." How is she going to also play any kind of regular role on Smallville this season?


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

DevdogAZ said:


> Laura Vandervoort is a regular in "V." How is she going to also play any kind of regular role on Smallville this season?


Who said regular?

I think it's just one episode...


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I really think you people are having trouble understanding the definition of "continuity." Just because one scene has a car driving on Road A, and then the next shot after they turn a corner has them on Road X all the way across town, that's not a continuity problem. That's simply a decision made by the director that Road X would look better after Road A. Most of the locations are supposed to be fairly generic, so it really doesn't matter in the story that the two locations aren't actually contiguous. Just because they label a picture of Real Location X as Real Location Y does not make it a continuity problem. If we're going to complain about that stuff, then why don't we list every movie that shoots in Toronto and claims to be in New York, or every TV show that shoots in LA and claims to be in Vegas/Miami/New York/San Francisco/Chicago, or every TV show that shoots in Vancouver and purports to be someplace else. Real locations vs. on-screen locations rarely match up. I'll bet the number of shows that shoot in the actual place they claim to be and get all the location details correct is miniscule compared to those that don't. It's just the way movies are made.

Continuity is an issue in the story, where something happens, and then later, characters act like it didn't. Or when a car gets wrecked and later it's perfectly fine. Or when a character is supposed to be in a certain grade, and the later they're not.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

As the OP, maybe I should have used a different word. I think it's fine to discuss all kinds of weird TV stuff like we've been talking about. What prompted me to start this thread was everyone jumping on Netringer in the Covert Affairs thread about the stuff he noticed about Chicago. I just thought it would be fun to have a whole thread on these kinds of "mistakes" happen, planned or otherwise.


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## Magister (Oct 17, 2004)

Knight Rider - Michael Knight was a cop with a different name and face that was in a shootin ro accident, I forget which. He got plastic surgery so severe that no one in his precinct recognized him. Fast forward a few seasons and his evil twin brother that LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE HIM but with pencil mustache and goatee.

He drove Goliath I think.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Who said regular?
> 
> I think it's just one episode...


Ah, gotcha. The spoilered text made it sound like more of a substantial story element than one episode.


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## sean67854 (Jul 11, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> That's a pretty big technical problem. Shooting at sunrise/sunset is difficult because A) the lighting is harder to begin with than full day or full night, since the natural light keeps changing, which means that between takes you have to adjust the lighting to compensate; and B) you have a limited time before it becomes full day or full night. That's why in the movies or TV it tends to go from day to night or vice versa very quickly. Twilight just doesn't last long enough for a major scene to be shot, which means it has to be done over multiple days. Unless you have a pretty good budget and/or the timing of the scene is crucial, it's generally not worth it.


One of the last episodes of White Collar this season had a scene that took place at 6pm (this was mentioned multiple times by the characters). In the outside scenes, they had been obviously (to my eye) darkened, and when they showed the skyline with the characters, it had been digitally colored with evening hues.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

Speaking of sunsets, although I'm not exactly sure this falls into "continuity":

A few years ago, a Survivor reunion/winner announcement show opened with a helicopter flying through Los Angeles in pretty much total darkness, which they made it sound like was happening live; however, it was 10:00 Eastern, which meant that it was 7 PM in Los Angeles, and in May, the sun would have still been out at the time. (In other words, the opening part was clearly taped beforehand.)

-- Don


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## Havana Brown (Feb 3, 2005)

That Don Guy said:


> Here's another "one season to the next" continuity error (either that, or something happened that they just didn't bother explaining); at the end of the next-to-last season of Petticoat Junction, Betty Jo was pregnant, but she was never pregnant (nor had she given birth again) in the last season and the pregnancy was never even mentioned.
> 
> -- Don


It was early 60's, of course you don't speak of that!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

Havana Brown said:


> It was early 60's, of course you don't speak of that!


Did they ever actually SAY she was pregnant? Maybe you were supposed to just politely overlook the fact...


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Did they ever actually SAY she was pregnant? Maybe you were supposed to just politely overlook the fact...


The episode dealt with Dr. Craig (the character brought in as a replacement when Bea Benaderet left - I don't remember if she was still alive but just too sick to continue, or had already died by that time) getting an offer somewhere else (New York, I think), but at the end of the episode, she says she's staying "to deliver Kathy Jo's brother" (Kathy Jo is Betty Jo's first child). It was clear that Betty Jo was supposed to be pregnant again.

-- Don


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

That Don Guy said:


> Speaking of sunsets, although I'm not exactly sure this falls into "continuity":
> 
> A few years ago, a Survivor reunion/winner announcement show opened with a helicopter flying through Los Angeles in pretty much total darkness, which they made it sound like was happening live; however, it was 10:00 Eastern, which meant that it was 7 PM in Los Angeles, and in May, the sun would have still been out at the time. (In other words, the opening part was clearly taped beforehand.)
> 
> -- Don


Are you sure the helicopter was flying through L.A.? I think the Survivor reunion show has been taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater in NYC for many years now.


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

702 said:


> CSI Season 1. Don't remember the show, but they said you take I-93 to get to Hoover Dam. I quit watching right there. (You take US93)


That's not a continuity error, that's a factual error.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Does having unlimited ammo count as a continuity error?

Stargate SG-1 uses a P90 with 50 round magazines, yet they hardly ever have to change magazines in a fire fight.


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

To be fair, in television production, they are under tremendous time and financial pressure to get these show done on schedule.
As a result, some things get missed (glass at an inconsistent fluid level throughout a scene) or are not considered important enough to go back and fix.
Or it may be a conscious decision on the director's part if say, he likes the actor performance better in Scene A even though Scene B has the extra in the correct position.



MegaHertz67 said:


> I live in Miami and Miami Vice was horrible about that. The turn a corner on South Beach and end up at a warehouse near the airport.
> 
> Burn Notice does a slightly better job, but I think it's because the budget is smaller and the locations aren't as ambitious.
> 
> ...


Even when the show is set in Los Angeles, what I call "malleable geography" happens a lot.

You saw this a lot in Dragnet, Adam 12, and Emergency.
Even Life had Cruse driving in downtown Los Angeles, turn the corner, and he's down by Long Beach.

I don't watch 24 but I understand that it's also very bad in this regard.



Magister said:


> Knight Rider - Michael Knight was a cop with a different name and face that was in a shootin ro accident, I forget which. He got plastic surgery so severe that no one in his precinct recognized him. Fast forward a few seasons and his evil twin brother that LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE HIM but with pencil mustache and goatee.
> 
> He drove Goliath I think.


To be fair, Garth Knight was Wilton Knight's biological son and there's even a line in the pilot after Michael has his plastic surgery that has Devon comment to Wilton on how Michael looks like "he could be your son".

However, Knight Rider has one of the most egregious examples of malleable geography I've ever seen.

The episode is set in Chicago and the show did do some location shooting for the episode.
But at one point, Michael is driving KITT down what is recognizably Wacker Drive in Chicago.
He drives down the street and the next scene shows him driving up to Whiteman Airport _in North Los Angeles_! 
Basically traveling over 2000 miles in a matter of seconds!

I knew Super Pursuit Mode was fast but....


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## Sparty99 (Dec 4, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Decades ago, my parents had a vacation condo on Kauai (before it got totally developed). There was a movie that was set there whose name I can't recall; it was basically a Seven Samurai riff notable mostly for the fact that it did the Indiana Jones "Hi-yah my ass" gag before Indiana Jones. But there was one part where they were in a car chase on the road that went past my parents' condo complex, and then around a corner. In real life, when you go around that corner, you end up heading down a narrow mountain road into a vast, spectacular valley. In the movie, suddenly they were pulling into town on the opposite side of the island.
> 
> That was the first time I noticed that kind of continuity...well, "mistake" isn't right, since they must have known what they were doing; no car chase that went past point A could end up at Point B (the road didn't go all the way around the island in that direction). So, continuity decision.


I've only noticed this once (not many shows are set and filmed in Detroit), no matter what we call it. There's a bar around the corner from my office called the Town Pump. It's a typical bar, kinda dingy. For the show Hung, they filmed the exterior, but went they went to the interior and it was a swanky upscale restaurant (because the name "Town Pump" screams class).



That Don Guy said:


> IMDB has reasonably detailed lists of this sort of thing for pretty much every movie and TV series.
> 
> Of course, there are two "classes" of continuity breaks that are so common that they pretty much can be skipped:
> 
> ...


There was a self-parody episode of The Simpsons that aired sometime around 1995, looking back 5 years to 1990. Everyone was aged back 5 years, so Bart and his classmates were 5, Lisa was 3, and there was no Maggie. The joke of course was that The Simpsons went on the air in 1989 with Bart at 10 and Lisa at 8.


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## gastrof (Oct 31, 2003)

Steveknj said:


> HD = Happy Days, not HD = High Definition.


Gotcha.

Chuck, the "only appeared twice, played by a different actor each time, then later ret-conned out by Marion's saying she and Howard had only two children" Cunningham son.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

One of my favorites is from an old Elvis movie, Clambake, set in Ft. Lauderdale. At the end of the movie, he is driving north with the ocean to his right. He points to his left and there is a HUGE oil field right there. LOL

Another one is from Days of our Lives and it's pretty obscure. I only noticed it because I used to tape many days in a row and watch hours at a time. On a Friday afternoon, a main character was waiting for an elevator in the hospital. When the elevator arrived, a nurse got off and the character entered. On Monday, they showed the scene again (as they frequently do) and a doctor got off the elevator. I had to rewind my tape to be sure I saw what I saw.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Magister said:


> Knight Rider - Michael Knight was a cop with a different name and face that was in a shootin ro accident, I forget which. He got plastic surgery so severe that no one in his precinct recognized him. Fast forward a few seasons and his evil twin brother that LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE HIM but with pencil mustache and goatee.
> 
> He drove Goliath I think.


He drove KARR, didn't he?


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

DougF said:


> He drove KARR, didn't he?


He drove Goliath.

KARR wouldn't let anyone drive him as he was contemptuous of humans.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

The first season of Heroes, they routinely had a last scene in one episode they would start off the show with the next week, and it was DIFFERENT!


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## sushikitten (Jan 28, 2005)

I enjoy catching these--and they don't affect my enjoyment at all. A recent one was on a S1 ep of Hung when he had his sleeves rolled up in one scene and down in the continuation shot in another room.


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

Sparty99 said:


> There was a self-parody episode of The Simpsons that aired sometime around 1995, looking back 5 years to 1990. Everyone was aged back 5 years, so Bart and his classmates were 5, Lisa was 3, and there was no Maggie. The joke of course was that The Simpsons went on the air in 1989 with Bart at 10 and Lisa at 8.


That wasn't a "self-parody" - it was an attempt at a flashback to when Maggie was born. They did the same thing with Bart and Lisa - the only problems here being, based on these episodes, Bart was born in 1980, Lisa in 1984, and Maggie in 1991...and a more recent episode had Marge attending college (and not being married to Homer yet) in the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, there are at least two instances where Family Guy messes up time continuity within a single episode (although one was an intentional breaking of the fourth wall...besides, Stewie has invented two time machines and an alternative universe travel device, so "continuity" doesn't really apply); in one, Stewie's rival (and half-brother) Bertram goes from being a sperm donated by Peter to born to pretty much Stewie's age in a single episode while nobody else (especially Stewie) gets older; in another, seven-year-old Brian discovers he has a 13-year-old son (this is the intentional one - the conversation goes something like this:
Stewie: "How can you have a 13-year-old son if you're only 7 yourself?"
Brian: "Dog years."
Stewie: "But that would make the problem worse!"
Brian: "You know what? Go complain on the Internet.")

-- Don


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

Hot4Bo said:


> Another one is from Days of our Lives and it's pretty obscure. I only noticed it because I used to tape many days in a row and watch hours at a time. On a Friday afternoon, a main character was waiting for an elevator in the hospital. When the elevator arrived, a nurse got off and the character entered. On Monday, they showed the scene again (as they frequently do) and a doctor got off the elevator. I had to rewind my tape to be sure I saw what I saw.


Was that the elevator that Dr. Drake Remory used?


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

Magister said:


> Knight Rider - Michael Knight was a cop with a different name and face that was in a shootin ro accident, I forget which. He got plastic surgery so severe that no one in his precinct recognized him. Fast forward a few seasons and his evil twin brother that LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE HIM but with pencil mustache and goatee.
> 
> He drove Goliath I think.


As I recall, the deal was that Michael Knight (formerly Michael Long) had plastic surgery after a gunshot blast disfigured him. The plastic surgeons supposedly modeled Michael's face on that of Wilton Knight, the creator of the Foundation for Law and Government (FLAG).

When the "twin brother" came along, he was actually Wilton Knight's biological son, and had a striking resemblance to Wilton Knight - and therefore, had a striking resemblance to Michael.

Now, I can remember all that, but I can't remember names of people I deal with quite often. *sigh* The brain works in weird ways.


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## Hot4Bo (Apr 3, 2003)

JYoung said:


> Was that the elevator that Dr. Drake Remory used?


LOL Of course! University Hospital!


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## tiassa (Jul 2, 2008)

How about the Episode of Warehouse 13 where they showed a still of Boston's City Hall plaza and called it "Cleveland"


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

You want continuity?

On "The West Wing" Season One "In Excelsis Deo": Josh: (to Donna) "Merry Christmas to you and your entire _Protestant_ family."

In Season 5 or 6 "Han" We meet Donna's parents and they're Catholic.

Something happened to Donna's family when they found out they were Canadian.


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

tiassa said:


> How about the Episode of Warehouse 13 where they showed a still of Boston's City Hall plaza and called it "Cleveland"


That's not a continuity error, that's a factual error.

(Yes, I'm repeating myself.)


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> Are you sure the helicopter was flying through L.A.? I think the Survivor reunion show has been taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater in NYC for many years now.


I'm pretty sure they do the fall season finale in LA and the spring season finale in NYC (it might be reversed).


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## bleen (Aug 9, 2008)

One I noticed long ago was from the late 80's movie "The Burbs" - a scene opens with the shadow of a kid riding a bicycle; the shadow is pretty narrow so it's obviously close to noon, but the scene quickly plays out that the kid is delivering newspapers and includes a just waking up guy in his bathrobe yawning and walking out the door only to get hit with his paper, to which he retaliates by flinging the coffee in his mug towards the kid. So either that was a REALLY late delivery and everyone was getting up REALLY late, or...


As for time-space continuums, all the CSI's are great in that the body is discovered in the morning; the team arrives on the scene; evidence is gathered; they go back to the lab to test it; they get the test results; they go back out to the scene for more evidence; back to the lab; test; results; determine a person to interview; bring them in; let them go for whatever reason; find more evidence; bring them back in - "Where were you THIS MORNING?" - all that happened in the span of 10 hours or so 

But conversely, the crime takes place in the middle of the night; CSI's arrive on the scene, still dark out; the next shot it's obviously late morning and they're still at the scene gathering evidence. So the initial evidence gathering eats up a good 5-10 hours, yet as noted above they're able to solve the entire case in less than 12 hours total


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## kaszeta (Jun 11, 2004)

Sparty99 said:


> I've only noticed this once (not many shows are set and filmed in Detroit), no matter what we call it. There's a bar around the corner from my office called the Town Pump. It's a typical bar, kinda dingy. For the show Hung, they filmed the exterior, but went they went to the interior and it was a swanky upscale restaurant (because the name "Town Pump" screams class).


I used to regularly go out for beers to The King of Clubs, the bar in the opening scenes of Fargo. Which wasn't in Fargo, it was a few blocks from my apartment in Minneapolis, and the interior scenes were obviously filmed elsewhere. This seems pretty common.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> Probably intended to be Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) in California.


I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in the Person's Unknown(*) thread, but I think in one conversation, they mixed up highway 1 and 101 a few times. (and what they showed didn't look like either of them.)

(*) I almost said "P.U.", but that's only everyone else's opinion of the show, not mine!


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

mattack said:


> I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in the Person's Unknown(*) thread, but I think in one conversation, they mixed up highway 1 and 101 a few times. (and what they showed didn't look like either of them.)
> 
> (*) I almost said "P.U.", but that's only everyone else's opinion of the show, not mine!


Yep, I mentioned it in my OP.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Another continuity error I saw, but one probably only someone familiar with NYC subway would notice:

In the past episode of Nikita, they go down to the subway, and while the station clearly looked correct for a NYC subway the trains that came in looked nothing like a NYC subway train. I'm not sure if they recreated an LA subway station to look like a NY station or they just CGIed it in.


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## trainman (Jan 29, 2001)

Steveknj said:


> In the past episode of Nikita, they go down to the subway, and while the station clearly looked correct for a NYC subway the trains that came in looked nothing like a NYC subway train.


When I went to Toronto for the first time a few years ago, the subway stations and trains looked surprisingly familiar -- and I realized it's because so many movies and TV shows have used the Toronto subway and pretended it was New York.


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## DavidTigerFan (Aug 18, 2001)

Only an apple geek would get this, but for some reason in the premiere of HIMYM when Lilly and marshall are at the bar arguing in the booth Marshal first has an iPhone 4 in his hand, then an iPhone 3G, then back to an iPhone 4. Odd continuity error....


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## That Don Guy (Mar 13, 2003)

Glee can't decide if the Cheerios have won five consecutive national cheerleading championships or six; they keep going back and forth. (In the second season premiere, it is back to five.)

-- Don


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

trainman said:


> When I went to Toronto for the first time a few years ago, the subway stations and trains looked surprisingly familiar -- and I realized it's because so many movies and TV shows have used the Toronto subway and pretended it was New York.


Is Nikita filmed in TO? I agree, the TO subway system reminds me a lot of the NYC system, which is why I was able to use it pretty easily when I visited and had no need for a car.


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## Honora (Oct 16, 2006)

trainman said:


> That's not a continuity error, that's a factual error.


SG-1 carry "good guy guns". They've been around forever. They never run out of ammo, unless it is important for the story. Did you ever see the Lone Ranger reload?


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

Honora said:


> SG-1 carry "good guy guns". They've been around forever. They never run out of ammo, unless it is important for the story. Did you ever see the Lone Ranger reload?


If mean where the hero has a single shot semi-auto pistol and he never misses hitting one of the bad guys who have fully automatic Uzis but never hit a thing.... the new Hawaii Five-0 has those.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

It's amazing that the Imperial Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship has enough room to accommodate all the bad guys who have obviously graduated with high honors...


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## Church AV Guy (Jan 19, 2005)

"And these blast points, too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise." 

This means that the Sandpeople couldn't hit a barn if they were in it when shooting. Maybe they can't see through the helmet visors.


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## Hank (May 31, 2000)

The factual, location errors or the glass-half full errors don't bother me at all.

What bothers me A LOT is arm or body position between camera switches (which are obviously different takes edited together).. when one person's arm is down at their side, and in the next cut scene, it's up or their arms are folded or in some other _different_ position that's not possible to do instantaneous. Really bugs me!


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## bleen (Aug 9, 2008)

Had a good one on Criminal Minds last night - bad guy broke into a home and after murder & mayhem got the car keys and went to the garage. Because of a power outage the garage door doesn't open so he just backs up and not only easily smashes through the door from a standing start, but as he drives away there's absolutely no damage to the back of the car


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

The "no-damage-to-the-car-after-crashing" is very prevalent. I'll bet the percentage of times when a show gets this right vs showing the car later without damage is miniscule.


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## Sparty99 (Dec 4, 2001)

What's always bothers me is a video playback of something in a movie or TV show - say a news report that plays back something we saw in the movie - and it doesn't match up with the original dialogue or tones of voices. And the thing that really sucks is that right now I can't come up with an example.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Sparty99 said:


> What's always bothers me is a video playback of something in a movie or TV show - say a news report that plays back something we saw in the movie - and it doesn't match up with the original dialogue or tones of voices. And the thing that really sucks is that right now I can't come up with an example.


In _Star Trek III_, when Kirk is looking at the flight recorder with Sarek, I think they used a different take for when Spock gives Bones the neck pinch than was used in _Star Trek II_. The TWOK, there is a much longer pause between Spock asking "What is Mr. Scott's condition" and Bones starting to speak than there is in the playback in TSFS.


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## DougF (Mar 18, 2003)

Just thought of another. On "Friends", not long after Chandler and Monica started hooking up, Joey walked in the bathroom and found Chandler taking a bubble bath. When they showed the clip later in a flashback episode, they used a different take. Chandler's dialogue was slightly different.


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## eddyj (Jun 20, 2002)

Rob Helmerichs said:


> It's amazing that the Imperial Stormtrooper School of Marksmanship has enough room to accommodate all the bad guys who have obviously graduated with high honors...


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## Hank (May 31, 2000)

I guess along these lines, it always bugs me when friend A calls friend B and says "quick, turn on channel 5".. and friend B turns on the TV to the BEGINNING of a news broadcast that directly involves friend B.

Yes, I know there could have been news "teasers" but it still bugs me.


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## Steveknj (Mar 10, 2003)

Well, I found another one. Probably one that only someone from New York (and Chicago) would notice. On last week's The Good Wife, there was a scene where people were talking outside of a building and it's near a place where the subway is coming out from underground to become elevated, and clear as day, the New York #1 train is coming (big red circle with 1 in white in it). The show takes place in Chicago, but is filmed in New York.


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## Neenahboy (Apr 8, 2004)

Steveknj said:


> Well, I found another one. Probably one that only someone from New York (and Chicago) would notice. On last week's The Good Wife, there was a scene where people were talking outside of a building and it's near a place where the subway is coming out from underground to become elevated, and clear as day, the New York #1 train is coming (big red circle with 1 in white in it). The show takes place in Chicago, but is filmed in New York.


Yep, I noticed too. A surprisingly small amount of shows based in Chicago actually film more than establishing shots here (_ER_ being a notable exception).


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## MegaHertz67 (Apr 18, 2005)

eddyj said:


>


Nice Woot shirt.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

Steveknj said:


> One of my "favorite" time gap continuity issues is from M*A*S*H. In the first or second episode of the series, they flash on the screen, Korea, 1952. Many seasons later, with a whole host of new characters, they do an episode about a bet that is made by Winchester about the outcome of the famous Giants-Dodger pennant race which ended in Bobby Thomson's HR (the shot heard round the world). That happened in 1951. So somehow, Trapper left and Henry Blake died in the future, even though they were replaced in the pace with new characters


I think something like September 1952 is when Potter came.

They did one episode (I think that episode with the pennant race), which spanned all of 1951 with, bookmarked with new years celebrations for 51 and 52.


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