It’s The Intern’s Fault: 40+ Times Viewers Spotted Mistakes On TV Shows

By Hans A

With the continuous increase in popularity of streaming platforms, people can now watch their favorite TV shows anywhere and anytime they want to. If they want to watch the same episode (or the same show) over and over again, they are free to do that as well.

Before the streaming era, we could only watch TV shows when they were on the TV, and then we’d have to wait until the network aired them again at a later date so we could watch them once more. And that’s why TV studios got away with a lot of stuff.

Now that we can binge-watch our favorite movies and shows anytime, it’s much easier for viewers to spot silly mistakes that were practically impossible to catch back then. Some of these mistakes are so funny that we have no words to explain how they made it to the final cut without a single person noticing them.

Here are some of the 45 silliest mistakes that viewers spotted on their favorite TV shows.

Infecting An Infected?

The Walking Dead franchise is known for its inconsistent story-telling and for leaving out important details that completely change how things work in the show. This confuses the viewers and causes many heated arguments among the passionate fans of the franchise.

The Walking Dead/AMC

In the eighth season of the show (yes, they have that many seasons), the survivors had the brilliant idea of coating their weapons with zombies’ guts to infect the other survivors. These are the same survivors that are already infected, which kind of makes their new weapon pretty useless.

Visible Crew Members

To be fair, Battlestar Galactica was made in the early 2000s, and back then, they didn’t have the same tools we have today to edit out some stuff from the scenes. Editing was much harder and very time-consuming compared to the process they use these days.

Battlestar Galactica/Syfy

If you watch it again, you’ll notice some insane mistakes that made it to the final cut. One of the most obvious ones is the scene where there’s a fight between Tyro and Helo. If you look to the bottom left in this shot, you will see two crew members doing their thing.

Unidentified Objects

CGI effects take up almost all of the budget, depending on the genre of the production and when it was made. If you have watched Lost, you can probably imagine how much they must’ve spent to get all those special effects back in 2004.

Lost/ABC

In the pilot episode, there’s a plane crash. In the following shot, there’s a huge dark object behind one of the survivors. There was an explosion right after that, so most people assumed that this unknown object caused it. However, according to the show’s directors, this unknown object was just a CGI error.

Stand-In Mixup

In filmmaking, the crew members use an actor’s double, or a stand-in, to occupy the real actor’s position so they can better picture the scene and figure out the best angles to shoot it. Once everything is ready, the stand-in’s job is finished, and they’re removed from the scene.

Friends/NBC

The production of Friends relied on these stand-ins when shooting because the filming process for this type of sitcom is different. In the episode The One With Rachel’s Date, someone noticed a scene where it wasn’t Monica (portrayed by Courtney Cox) talking to Phoebe, but the actress’ stand-in!

A Message From The Future

You don’t have to watch The Simpsons to know that this show has predicted the future a couple of times. People rave about it all the time on the internet, claiming that the show had already talked about stuff like certain viruses and presidents back in the 1990s.

The Simpsons/Fox

The show has had lots of flashback moments throughout its run. In one of these flashbacks, we see Marge telling Homer that she is pregnant with their third baby, Maggie. However, if you look behind Marge, there’s already a picture of their soon-to-be-born baby as we know her.

A Prodigy In The Making

Producing a musical show or movie is never easy, especially when the main actors are not musicians. Pretending that you know how to sing for the camera is not that challenging, but acting like you know how to play an instrument is.

The Tudors/BBC

In The Tudors, they had this character play the violin, but fans have spotted a few problems with that. For starters, the actor’s finger placement was completely wrong and out of sync with the music. Also, this kind of violin didn’t exist yet, considering the show was set in the 16th century.

Happy Accident

Accidents in movie productions happen all the time, and sometimes these accidents give the directors a better idea than what they had before. In its first seasons, the series Twin Peaks featured an evil entity named Bob that killed some characters of the show.

Twin Peaks/ABC

But it turns out the “entity” came to life because of a mistake. When an on-set dresser was accidentally caught on camera in one of the scenes, the director thought it would make for a perfect ghost plot. So they incorporated the mistake into the show, and Bob was born.

Ahead Of Its Time

Downton Abbey is a wildly popular historical drama television show that supposedly took place in the UK in the 1910s. Back then, glass bottles were mass-produced for a wide variety of drinking products, such as milk and soda. People then didn’t have the same plastic bottles we have now.

Downton Abbey/ITV

In a promotional shot for the show, fans spotted a modern-day plastic bottle behind Lord Grantham and Lady Edith. This contradicts the time of the show, as plastic bottles were only popular in the 1960s, that is, 50 years after the show’s time period.

Apartment Switcheroo

The TV show Friends is available for streaming on a bunch of platforms. If you’re thinking of rewatching it for the 100th time, here’s a fun thing to look for. In the first episode, Monica and Rachel live in apartment number 5, while their friends live across the hallway in apartment number 6.

Friends/NBC

However, when the second season started, the numbers changed to 20 (Monica and Rachel’s flat) and 21 (Joey and Chandler’s apartment). While this wasn’t a mistake per se, the characters never talked about moving apartments, which is why some fans were confused for a hot minute.

Reflection Strikes Again

If you ever work in movie production, make sure to check if there are any mirrors or glass surfaces reflecting the BTS of the show. When the crew is not careful, they might not notice that there’s a camera appearing on a mirror – or on a character’s glasses.

Homeland/Showtime

This is exactly what happened in Homeland. Although it’s a bit hard to see, the reflection in Al-Zahrani’s glasses shows the crew members working behind the scenes. Luckily, most lenses nowadays have an anti-reflective coating that prevents this kind of mistake from happening.

Inaccurate History

History movies are a great watch – but only if the writers and directors get their facts right. While we can’t overlook the fact that these types of flicks are still fiction, it’s kind of annoying when the characters say or do things that are not consistent with the time period.

Mad Men/AMC

Mad Men takes place in the late 1960s. However, fans noticed that there’s an episode where Joan offers to make a reservation at the restaurant Le Cirque. However, this restaurant didn’t open until 1974, so the fans were pretty confused trying to get what restaurant the character was talking about.

The Wrong Seasoning

When Netflix came into this world, it released a show that helped put the platform on the map. Orange Is The New Black is a dramedy series set in prison. The show tells the story of different inmates and how they deal with that kind of lifestyle.

Orange Is The New Black/Netflix

Each inmate had a different hobby, and Flaca and Maritza’s was recording videos for their vlog. In one of the episodes, they’re talking about using spices to replace the makeup they don’t have, and the fans spotted a silly mistake. The characters are talking about a certain spice, but they show a completely different seasoning.

Abrupt Replacement

During the first season of Glee, the audience was shown a photo of Rachel’s dads when she was talking about her family. There was nothing out of the ordinary with that…until season 3. Her dads from the picture were replaced by actors Jeff Goldblum and Brian Stokes Mitchel, leaving fans confused.

Glee/Fox

During the first season, there was even a joke regarding her fathers from the image, but it lost all meaning when they changed the actors. The character’s origins are also inconsistent, as it was mentioned that she had been given up for adoption, but then her fathers mentioned she was born via surrogate.

Lethal Errors

Before George Clooney was known for the Oceans franchise, he acted in ER, a top-rated medical drama. In the show, Dr. Doug Ross explained that he has a son whom he hasn’t met. Well, that’s bad parenting at its finest. In later episodes, he then stated that he never had kids.

ER / NBC

Another bothersome error that the show used to make was when they were shooting surgery scenes. The patients’ families were always present during the procedure and would walk out because they couldn’t stand the sight. In real life, we all know that family members stay in the waiting room, not inside the operating room.

True Devotion

In the series The Sopranos, there’s a dramatic scene wherein Tony Soprano kills Ralph in the kitchen. When he tried to regain his balance after the whole ordeal, he put his hand on the stove – but little did he know that the stove was on, so he burned his hand.

The Sopranos/HBO

Behind the scenes, the stove really was on and the actor did burn his hand. He simply stayed in character while he screamed in pain, and the director was so impressed with his dedication that they had to include this mistake and act as if it was part of the script.

Mixing Up Important Dates

If you love learning about the behind-the-scenes of the royal family, then you probably watch the hit show The Crown. The show depicted the early years of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and is now getting to the 1990s. The Queen has been portrayed by different actresses, and Olivia Colman is one of them.

The Crown/Netflix

In the third season, the writers mixed up the date of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. In real life, the date was celebrated 25 years after the monarch’s coronation. However, the show depicted it as 25 years after her ascension to the throne, so the characters celebrated it one year earlier than its actual date.

Questionable Family

Back in the 80s and 90s, family sitcoms were all the rage. Some shows were so popular they even got spin-off series, and Perfect Strangers was one of them. The show’s spin-off, Family Matters, focused on the Winslows, a middle-class family living in the Chicago suburbs.

Family Matters/CBS

The show was all about family (hence the title), but funnily enough, they completely neglected one of the daughters. Judy Winslow vanished from the show after the fourth season, and nobody ever mentioned her name again, even though she was an important character in the story!

When Friends Work Together

Supernatural is a fantasy series about two brothers who fight supernatural beings for a living, following their dad’s footsteps. Actors occasionally break character when shooting their scenes, especially if the scene is full of intense emotions that tend to mess with the actor’s head.

Supernatural/The CW

This is what happened in an episode where Dean had to call his brother’s name to catch his attention. However, the actor said the other actor’s name in real life instead of “Sam,” which was his fictitious name. The scene didn’t make it to the final cut, thanks to the power of video editing software.

On-Set Tricks

While we get to watch the final product, the behind-the-scenes of our favorite shows is pretty hectic. The production crew has to shoot the same scenes a bunch of times, from different angles and with different lightings. Because there are so many angles, experienced actors learn to use some tricks while shooting.

Gossip Girl/The CW

Blake Lively’s character in Gossip Girl wore dresses even during winter. To keep herself warm, the actress kept her sweatpants on whenever the camera captured her body’s upper half. However, the camera person forgot to crop her legs out during one of those scenes, and that’s how she looked in the episode.

Miraculous Recovery

Jane the Virgin is an American dramedy that makes you laugh with its ironic use of telenovelas’ clichés. In the last season, Petra’s mom, Magda, is lying in a hospital bed, and she’s not doing very well. The character was only breathing because of the machines.

Jane The Virgin/The CW

However, the breathing tube suddenly vanished in the following shot, which surprised everyone. Nobody in the episode mentioned that the character was doing better, so the fans speculated that this was a mistake that the editors or production crew didn’t spot.

A Helping Hand

Netflix puts out a lot of questionable content, but they also release a lot of masterpieces. The Good Place fits the “masterpiece” category for sure. The series is known for its originality and unique take on what happens after we die. Not to mention that all the characters are relatable.

The Good Place/NBC

In the episode “What we owe each other,” Janet had to deliver some papers to Eleanor and Michael. However, the actress wasn’t holding anything during the scene, so a crew member “subtly” handed her the papers while the cameras were rolling. Whether this was a mistake or not, it boosted this episode’s popularity.

The Imaginary Steering Wheel

Sci-fi fans know how hard it is for their favorite stories to get told on TV. That’s because it takes a lot of money to produce sci-fi shows and movies, given all the special effects they need. While popular shows like Star Trek have no problem with the budget, others, like Firefly, certainly do.

Firefly/Fox

During this episode, the male character was supposed to be steering the spaceship as they navigated the galaxy. However, the fans noticed that the actor’s hand was holding thin air and nothing else. To this day, we don’t know if the editing team forgot to insert the steering wheel or ran out of money.

The Show Must Go On

Boy Meets World is a coming-of-age sitcom that centers on Cory Matthews and his friends and family as he ventures through life from childhood into adulthood. The show ran for seven years, so it kind of makes sense that the director decided on changing the actors instead of writing out the role.

Boy Meets World/ABC

In the first season, Topanga’s parents are portrayed by a set of actors. The next season, they were portrayed by completely different actors. The change in cast happened a couple of other times, and the fans were always left wondering what was going on.

Loyal Even On The Job

The X-Files is the kind of TV show that is so iconic that it literally shapes some people’s lives. After all, how many people realized their sexuality after watching Gillian Anderson bring the character Dana Scully to life? Iconic as it may be, the show was not exempt from silly mistakes.

The X-Files/Fox

In this episode, Scully’s partner Mulder was wearing a wedding ring despite not being married. The truth is that the actor David Duchovny, who portrayed the role, forgot to remove his wedding band before shooting, and nobody realized it was there until it was too late.

That’s How You Use A Phone?

As senseless as it may sound, actors don’t actually call other actors when shooting their scenes. Instead, they pretend that they’re speaking on the phone. Because it’s all make-believe, it’s not hard for actors to make silly mistakes when shooting these types of scenes.

Pretty Little Liars/Freeform/EzraandAria1/YouTube

In Pretty Little Liars, actress Lucy Hale had to shoot a scene where her character was on the phone. The problem is that the actress didn’t realize she was holding the phone upside down when shooting. Well, this is just another mistake in the long list of errors made in the show.

Plot Convenience

Modern Family is a family sitcom that revolves around three suburban families in a mockumentary style wherein the characters frequently talk to the camera in confessional interview segments. They usually comment on their reactions to events that happened in the episode.

Modern Family/Fox

In a random season three episode, Phil Dunphy is in a particularly good mood after finally learning how to walk a tightrope. However, this is a plot hole because, in previous episodes, Phil had proudly mentioned that he was a pro at doing this.

Fresh From The Bucket

You must have noticed that lots of the shows on this list were produced in the 90s or before the age of technology. Back then, it was much easier to make mistakes when shooting because the production crew had to create many of the effects manually.

Malcom In The Middle/Fox

In this particular show, fans spotted a crew member holding a bucket full of water. Although we don’t know why exactly they needed that bucket, we know for a fact that the audience was not supposed to see the crew member kneeling on the floor.

Peek-A-Bottle

Game of Thrones has millions of fans across the globe. It’s undoubtedly one of the best shows in television history, but we have to admit that they made their fair share of mistakes during the production stages. One of the mistakes was forgetting a water bottle on set.

Game of Thrones/HBO

If this were any other show on the planet, most people would probably never notice such a small mistake. However, this is Game of Thrones we’re talking about, and nothing goes unnoticed with the show’s fanbase. This was yet another reason to criticize the show’s finale.

When Life Gives You Lemons…

Seinfeld is the kind of timeless show that needs no introduction. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can rest assured that you won’t regret it. The sitcom is so good that even the production mistakes manage to be hilarious.

Seinfeld/NBC

In this episode, the characters are trying to find a car. They found the car, but the problem was that it wouldn’t start in real life. Instead of discarding the scene, the directors decided to change the end of the episode because it was much funnier this way.

Unannounced Renovations

TV sitcoms usually don’t have enough funding to go for a rather expensive-looking set. However, once the show becomes popular, the producers have the financial means to improve the sets. While it would be nice for the fans to understand why the sets change, some shows don’t take the time to explain it.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air/NBC

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is one of those shows. In the first season, the main set looked small and cheap. In the second season, however, the set was completely different and actually fitting for a rich family in Bel-Air. The funny thing is that no one ever mentioned how the house changed drastically.

Delayed Graduation

Not that into teen drama series? Well, you don’t have to watch these shows to know The OC. The show was wildly popular back then, and it still has fans to this day. And the ever-so-passionate fans noticed a funny thing regarding the show’s timeline.

The OC/Fox

In the first season, the characters were in junior high. Instead of moving to senior year the following season, they’re still juniors! While the years went by in every other aspect, they were stuck in time when it came to school.

They’re Forgiven

Stranger Things is so successful that it made the dying community of Dungeons and Dragons come back to life. This is great news for the fans, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t upset when they noticed some mistakes in the show.

Karen Batista / fatosdesconhecidos.com

The show is set in the early 1980s when Dungeons and Dragons first emerged. The villain in the show is the Demogorgon, which is a figurine from the RPG game. The problem is that this figure was created in 1984, a couple of years after the show’s timeline.

Overthinking Simple Things

You must have noticed how production crews make silly mistakes that could have been quickly fixed if anyone was paying the slightest attention to what they were doing. And this is yet another of those errors that could have been easily avoided.

Sons of Anarchy / FX

In Sons of Anarchy, the characters do illegal stuff for profit, like stealing cars. Well, it seems like this car robber didn’t have much experience, considering they were going through all that trouble to steal a car whose door was unlocked from the start.

To Breathe Or Not To Breathe?

Technically, vampires are like zombies, for neither creature is alive. As such, these scary monsters don’t really need oxygen or any of the things that keep regular humans alive. We suppose that the writers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer missed that memo.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer / The WB

The show had multiple scenes where the vampires drowned, passed out when someone choked them and were able to smoke a cigarette. And that’s just a few of the things about vampires the show got wrong. Well, vampires don’t really exist, so we’re going to let the writers get away with this stuff.

The Power Within

Game of Thrones wasn’t really a magical fantasy show. Dragons never really existed, but it’s not like the show focused solely on that aspect. Still, there were some witches in the show, Melisandre included. The woman has a magical necklace that makes her look young even though she’s 400 years old.

Game of Thrones / HBO

Fast forward to the fourth season, and the witch removes her necklace to take a bath. The problem with that? Well, her appearance doesn’t change at all, even though the necklace is technically the only thing that keeps her looking pretty and young.

Do Your Research!

Gone are the days when production crews had to move all their equipment and staff to a different city for location filming. Nowadays, actors don’t even have to leave the studio while we see their characters traveling the whole world.

How I Met Your Mother/CBS

In How I Met Your Mother, the actors lived and shot the series in Los Angeles, even though the story was set in New York. Most people didn’t notice a thing…until the episode where we followed the characters through a map. The mistake? The producers used a map of L.A. instead of New York!

Never Fake Your Resume

In Sex And The City, Charlotte gests married to Harry Goldenblatt, and their union gets a special mention in The New York Times. For starters, her photo was so badly edited that it looked like the poor woman had a mustache. But that’s not where the mistakes end.

Sex And The City / HBO

The newspaper states that Charlotte is a writer and editor, which is false information since she’s a museum docent and has never worked as an editor/writer. The fans never got to know if the character lied in the story or if the newspaper used Carrier’s info instead.

Doctors In Panic Mode

Grey’s Anatomy has been around forever, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, or so it seems. While the writers get kudos for all their efforts in making the show seem as realistic as possible, they have also made their fair share of unbelievable mistakes.

Natalie Cole/Grey’s Anatomy/ABC

If you’ve ever done an MRI, you know how the hospital staff asks if you have any metals inside your body. This procedure and metals don’t get along well, so it was surprising when the doctors in the show ordered an MRI for a woman with a fork stuck in her neck.

Another Magical Necklace

Sometimes, producers and editors do notice some mistakes when filming, which is why they yell “cut” and shoot the scene from the top. Well, lots of mistakes happen precisely when they’re trying to fix other mistakes. And here’s an example of that.

Friends / NBC

Actors get their outfits, hair, and makeup fixed in-between takes, so it’s not unusual for them to look slightly different in different shots. That’s probably what happened here, because Jennifer Aniston’s necklace simply vanished from one shot to the next.

The Disappearance Of The Younger Sister

That 70’s Show is really popular both for the story and also for the mistakes they made in the production. One of their many mistakes happened during a flashback scene, where Donna’s younger sister tagged along with the gang for a while.

That ’70s Show / Fox

The issue is that, after this episode, it was mentioned several times that Donna was an only child. Indeed, the characters never mentioned this sister ever again, and everyone acted as if she never existed. Well, the fans never forget.

What’s His Name Again?

Few sitcoms achieve the level of success that The Big Bang Theory achieved. The show’s premise was pretty unique, and maybe that’s why it garnered a legion of loyal fans. And these same fans noticed how Penny’s father’s name changed drastically in the story.

The Big Bang Theory/CBS

In the first season, the character mentions that her dad is called Bob. However, in the later seasons, she refers to him as Wyatt. The names are not related at all, so the fans were confused. Many assumed that it was intentional, considering that Penny was a forgetful character.

How Do People Notice This?

It’s really interesting to notice how some people have eagle eyes and notice small mistakes that are almost imperceptible. We would never have spotted half of the mistakes on this list if other people hadn’t pointed them out to us.

The Simpsons/Fox

Some fans noticed that the show’s intro had a mistake. When Homers gets hit by a car, the clutter in the background changes drastically. The thing is: this scene only lasts a couple of seconds! How do people notice this stuff?

Predicting The Rise Of An Empire?

As we mentioned before, Game of Thrones had its fair share of mistakes when filming. But there was a particular mistake that made the rounds and went viral on social media from the minute the episode aired on our televisions.

Game of Thrones/HBO

Somehow, people noticed that there was a cup of coffee on one of the tables. It’s pretty crazy to think that there were dozens of people in the room when filming this scene, and not one of them noticed that Starbucks cup.

Is It A Short-Term Memory Problem?

It’s not unusual for TV shows to rely on flashbacks to describe episodes that happened before the start of the series. In Friends, these flashbacks were pretty common, especially when the writers wanted to show the audience how some characters met.

Friends / NBC

In the show, we get to see how each of the characters met one another. At first, Monica introduced Rachel and Chandler. In another episode, a flashback showed them meeting before the pilot. And there were other flashbacks showing this pair meeting for the first time on four different occasions.

Let’s Pretend We Didn’t See It

Look, we get it. It’s pretty frustrating when we spot something out of place in our favorite TV shows. Seeing that coffee cup on that show was annoying because it totally broke the fourth wall. But can’t we just let these mistakes slide every once in a while?

House of the Dragon/HBO/@SarahC_814/Twitter

House of the Dragon is a huge sensation (as expected), but just like its mother series, the fans easily spotted some silly mistakes. One of them was the fact that we could see the editing team forgot to delete the actors’ fingers, and we saw the special effects glove instead.