Episode 3 Great TV Mistakes

Hello, I'm Robert Webb.

Welcome to Great TV Mistakes.

Over the next half hour, we'll be revealing the worst howlers ever broadcast.

Mistakes my crack team of square-eyed OCD numpties refuse to rest

until THEY have managed to show YOU the foul-ups THEY didn't want YOU to see.

They meaning them, not you.

Coming up - mistakes from:

..and many more!

To misquote the great Salt-N-Pepa, let's talk about sets.

Set designers do an incredible job, and I hate to spoil the magic of television, but sometimes what

appears to be real is actually made of elaborately painted wood, much like Amanda Holden's face.

This wall behind me, that's not brick, that's papier mache,

expertly knocked together by the Great TV Mistakes set designers.

Trust me, there's nothing we in television can't convincingly recreate.

The inside of the White House, the outside of a spaceship,

even an entire 15th century English village.

Everything, in fact, except Daphne in Frasier's Mancunian accent,

And all of these shocking set-related howlers.

Hey, Magnum's in Friends.

Look at the size of the bloke. They're having to widen the shot just to squeeze him in.

A bit too wide, if you ask me.

That is the edge of the set. Unless there's always been an enormous hole in Joey and Chandler's wall.

In which case, why does everyone still use the door?

Well, we had a table in college.

Filming historical storylines is always a challenge.

Take this episode of Doctor Who, set in Victorian London with Charles Dickens and some zombies.

But forget about them, because that is an electric light switch.

Edison didn't test the first light bulb until nine years after Charles Dickens' death.

If that isn't a mistake, my name isn't Robert Webb.

Which it is.

It's Doctor Who, '70s-style. And problems with the TARDIS have forced him to get these alien builders in.

See the alien builder on the left, keep your eyes on his feet.

D'oh! That's torn it, literally.

Light, too much light!

Yep, he's got his space boat caught under the Axminster. You idiot.

I know what you're thinking, how's he going to get his foot out from under the carpet?

Pick it up or just kick the carpet out of the way?

And he... Yeah, he just kicks it out of the way. Nice one.

Goddamn alien cowboy builders!

The IT Crowd, and Jen's up on the top floor.

I feel like I'm on top of the world.

Well, the top floor anyway, which is...

Floor 34.

Yes, floor 34.

-OK, where am I going?

-All the way down to the basement.

From floor 34. But, hang on.

That lift's only got 31 buttons, meaning there's only 31 floors.

This doesn't make any sense.

I'm beginning to think these people don't take their pretend lift buttons seriously.

A brilliantly silly sequence from Wonder Woman now,

starring killer ape Gargantua

and this bloke in specs, who kicks off a classic dust-up

by throwing a balsawood coffee table like a massive girl.

Then, after some more "acting", he goes running for the door and that large red emergency button.

Gargantua throws a poorly constructed dummy across the room and, hey, it's a military rozzer.

He tries to press the button, misses it, but it goes off anyway. He's out of the game.

But here comes his mate, who's elderly.

He ignores the emergency button, cos it's not there any more,

and bounces off Gargantua like a septuagenarian pinball.

Yes, there was an error there but I'll be damned if I could spot it.

Here's pathologist turned serial killer, Dexter,

examining a dead body. Now, hold it there.

Time check. 11 minutes past 4.

And play.

Dexter takes a quick shufti at the cadaver.

And hold again. Ooh, it's 4:17.

That little look took six minutes.

Doesn't time fly when you're sniffing at a corpse?

Here's Lucy Lawless as Xena

in the best fighting form of her life, taking on baddie Deiphobus

Go, Xena! She's hard as a rock.

In fact, much harder than a rock.

Especially THAT rock. Boing!

Doing!

Hmm, did they have foam in ancient Greece?

Remember the time that you almost drowned...

Now, I don't want to suggest that they knocked some of these sets up in an afternoon,

cos often they don't have that long, but there is something a bit crap about this clip from Xena,

in which we see a Greek fortress, which history tells us were made of stone.

Stone, that geology tells us isn't known for its wobbly properties.

But look, over he goes, with a wibble and a wobble and a half pipe twist

that gymnastics tells us is an 8.5. I bet you can't do that again.

Wibble wobble, wibble wobble. Oh, he can.

That was the one I was trying to get a look at, not that Australian hayseed.

All's not well at Fawlty Towers, for a change.

Try as he might, Basil just can't get through to wife Sybil, for a change.

She's so annoyed and slams the door, along with half the wall.

That is some very unstable brickwork. Will somebody please call a builder?

And not Mr O'Reilly. Little joke for the fans there.

Just in case you're not one, O'Reilly is Basil's regular builder, very cheap and less than competent.

Look, he's blocked up the door to the dining room, blocked solid.

Well, not entirely.

No one puts up a wobblier wall than Basil Fawlty's builder.

Apart from a BBC set designer.

Sometimes not even a cheap set can ruin a scene, if the scene is a classic.

Basil's trying to catch one of the guests with a girl in his room but he's got the wrong window.

Keep your eyes on the pane of "glass".

It's plastic. And smeary, scratched plastic at that.

All in all, a gold star for BBC comedy and a brown smear for programme finance.

It's Blackadder II, and Queenie and Edmund are staking a wager with Lord Melchett.

Namely, how long can Stephen Fry last before going "Behhh"?

Watch what happens when Rowan waltzes out and, in his own words, the wall goes wibble.

I know what Stephen Fry would have said if he had seen that.

"Behhhhh!"

-Where have you been?

-Where haven't I been? Woof!

Blackadder was a studio show, so you'd expect the build quality of the sets to be a bit dodgy.

As we know, that's just part of British sitcom law,

although in the case of these doors,

surely even balsawood would have been a better choice than polystyrene.

Will Smith is living it up in his uncle's mansion, a cardboard mansion.

Boom, shake the room!

I hope that's not a supporting wall.

Right, they leave me no choice.

A classic Thunderbirds car chase.

Watch what happens when the baddies' car spins off the road.

Timber!

Either the biggest squirrel in the world is in those trees

or the set guy just ran out of glue.

I think he makes half of it up.

Doctor Who's been on the telly for 47 years and 42 of those have been spent in corridors.

That's because corridors are cheap and impossible to get wrong, mostly.

Freeze the shot.

Notice the sign on the left for Torchwood.

Now, spin forward, and it's Billie's turn to try and fill some airtime.

That's it, Billie, create a bit of tension. Keep the dads watching.

And look at that.

The sign's gone all bigger with loads of added signery that just wasn't there a moment ago.

"Will the set designer please report to base, where an arse-kicking is waiting? Thank you."

You think you can kill a cop and get away with it?

Why not? I've done it before.

Star Trek: The Next Generation,

and Captain Picard and Data have got all mixed up with some '30s gangster types on the holodeck.

Meanwhile, outside in the corridor, we can clearly see there's

absolutely no second corridor leading off to the side.

Except when the gangsters step outside, there is.

In space, no-one can hear you scream, "That was rubbish!"

-It's not going to work.

-Excellent, John, you're evolving.

Here's one for fans of Lost, assuming there are any left.

In this scene, Locke is required to throw a plastic tray at a stone wall,

but see how the plastic tray makes the stone wall tremble.

Normally, I'd say that was a TV mistake but this is Lost,

so you know, anything's possible. I blame the polar bears.

Hi, just so you know, we didn't mean...

Back to Friends, which was, of course, always filmed in front of

a live studio audience, and a very wobbly set.

Hmm, about as convincing as that bloke's beard.

Merry Christmas!

This is an episode of Friends called The One With The Self-Opening Door.

Oh God, you're the best!

Door closed...

Door open. If that isn't final proof of the existence of the supernatural, I don't know what is.

Ronnie Barker in the excellent Porridge and the inmates of Slade are out

for the day, under the supervision of Mr Barraclough in an old church.

Well, the outside bits were filmed in an old church, but the interiors certainly weren't.

Want proof? Just look what happens when Melvyn leans on a column.

Yes, it wobbles in a way that most Saxon stonework just doesn't.

TV is divided into on and off-screen talent. And for good reason.

I'm on-screen talent, because I'm beautiful and incredibly clever.

The camera people, make-up assistants and wardrobe -

flunkies, are off-screen talent, because they're ugly.

Trust me, you do not want to see these people.

I'm facing some of them right now and just looking at them is giving me such violent

stomach cramps it's a wonder I don't vomit all over the camera.

So, hold on to your lunches, cos our first set of clips are

littered with off-screen bods making fleeting on-screen appearances.

Not so much in a knowing, ironic, Alfred Hitchcock kind of a way, more a sort of "Oi, bacon-face, shift!"

sort of a way. Eww...

Hey, look, those crafty ancient Greeks are attacking Troy

after sneaking into the city in the belly of the Trojan horse.

There they are, in their rubber helmets.

But, according to this episode of Xena, they weren't alone.

It's your job to fight her first.

Oh, no, cos also stowed away in the horse's bumhole was...

This bloke! There he is, squatting on the battlements. You numpty.

Here's Sarah Michelle Gellar walking through a creepy wood late at night.

Careful, Buffy, watch out for vampires!

Oh, my God, what's that?!

It's a monster with a huge...!

Microphone. Oh dear, it's the boom operator.

Thunderbirds, and ignore this foreign baddie.

Damn those Welsh Iraqi pilots.

Watch Tintin, held in the vice-like grip of this serial killer turned puppeteer.

His nails aren't normally that dirty, he'd just finished burying another body.

So what did you do that made Dad cut you off?

OK, team, no clues.

See if you can spot the mistake in this clip from Friends.

Yeah, but it wasn't for me, it was for a friend.

Boy, did we make friends with the wrong sister.

You missed it, didn't you? Forget the pretty actors, look at the pretty cameraman.

It's amazing what you miss when you're laughing. And when you're not.

It's gourmet night at Fawlty Towers and a very funny scene featuring

a fine example of the easily missable TV mistake.

Missed it, didn't you? Here it is again.

This time, forget the action and concentrate on the BBC techie bloke squatting behind the double doors.

A classic mistake from a classic comedy that just got funnier with age.

If only the same could be said for John Cleese.

I mean, look at that!

-Can I help?

-Yes, go and kill yourself!

Sam and Dean from Supernatural are having trouble with a couple of amateur ghost hunters.

Question is, what's behind that door?

Guys, you want to go open that door for us?

Everyone's terrified and armed to the teeth - must be the Jehovah's Witnesses.

It's a ghost, or at least a ghost who can be hurt by bullets.

I can't decide what's worse about this clip, the ghost who's afraid of bullets

or the cameraman who doesn't know where to stand.

Hmm, it's the cameraman.

Its Charmed, the series about a bunch of friendly witches. Or am I thinking of Loose Women?

Anyway, ignore this trespasser and instead feast your eyes on

the director sitting in the next room listening to his iPod.

You're supposed to sit behind the camera, not in front of the pointy end. See that book?

As soon as they turn the camera off, they're going to hit him with that.

It's Doctor Who from 1975, back when children everywhere could

be found hiding behind the sofa, avoiding gaffes like this.

Keep your eyes on the baddie's bottom, or rather what's under it.

-I can move!

-Oh, dear.

That floor assistant's thinking "If I move my hand away slowly, no-one will see a thing."

But we did.

Here's Blackadder staging an elaborate con trick, but not the one

where he gets massive laughs from repeatedly saying the word "Bob."

No, he's pretending he's built a time machine.

Of course, it's not real, and you can tell, cos it's made of wood

and bits of old junk and requires one of the crew to push the door shut.

Well done, Balders, this is very impressive.

The maybe of Mike Delphino.

It's Desperate Housewives, and Susan's just broken into a neighbour's house

to return a Pyrex jug, but finds time to take a moment alone with just her thoughts for company.

And that bloke crawling behind the sofa.

Yes, it's the guy who just set fire to the curtains,

whose idea of keeping out of shot is crawling across the screen on his hands and knees.

Wait for it. You're... Fired!

Ha-ha! Sorry.

Here's a clip from Scrubs, the American sitcom set in a hospital.

It's a bit like Casualty but with fewer laughs.

Here, Dr Turk is about to bite into a sarnie when all of a sudden, there's an emergency.

Thankfully, someone's there to lend a hand.

That's either a member of the crew holding the door open

or one of the patients has fallen out of bed again.

-Make those dreams happen.

-Yes.

You can always tell when a TV series is working,

cos everyone on screen looks like they're really enjoying themselves.

Take Arrested Development, a show which is obviously so much fun

even the crew like to get on, just once... Boo!

Or twice. Boo!

-An emotional farewell scene in Lost as Charlie says goodbye to Hurley.

-That's uncool, man.

But for once, try to keep your eyes off the unfolding drama and Hurley's boobs,

and on the cameraman clearly visible to the left of shot.

You can see his sandals, his camera and if you really squint, his P45.

Wait!

It's 24, and everything, as always, is very, very tense.

A tense Tony is ignoring a call from a tense Nina.

Come on, Sammy, pick up.

Unbeknown to tense Nina, there's someone else in the barn with her.

And here he comes, wandering in from the right.

A cameraman.

And if you want to know how he's feeling, I'll tell you. Tense.

Whenever there's a conversation about the world's hardest jobs,

the same professions come up time and time again.

Trauma surgeon, soldier, air traffic controller, and of course, actor.

And out of these jobs, actor is surely the hardest.

Actors do a very difficult job.

If we're not learning lines, then we're signing autographs or doing

stuff for free with wonky kids, we're having to stand up in front

of loads of strangers and say words that sometimes we don't even understand.

Consequently, every now and again, through no fault of our own, stuff does go a bit wrong.

I'm sorry, the party got a little out of hand.

People your age, they have finished college...

Oh, the poor little rich girls of The OC.

Here's Hayley, tidying up after another crazy party.

Well, I say tidying up, but what Amanda Rugetti is actually doing

is picking up tiny pieces of invisible rubbish.

Look, she's dropping little bits of air into that bin bag.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what you call method acting...

if your method is piss-poor.

You know, this scene was filmed eight years ago

but unsurprisingly, she only finished tidying the room last Thursday.

Oh, we're back in The OC

and here comes Mischa Barton, sulking her way into the room.

"Nuh, nuh, nuh, I'm Mischa Barton."

And she dumps her jacket down on the right, and then moments later,

there it is on the left.

That's not going to improve her mood.

To Albert Square and that live anniversary episode.

And Stace and Bradley are talkin' abaht fings with Max and Scott when Scott forgets his lines.

You held the fact from the pl... Look, it's a motive, you've held it against the public...

-Look, we all have...

-Well, I'll explain that.

-Oh, dear, no retakes here. This is live.

-Found out what she, what...

Oh, he's gone again. Oh, tricky business, this live telly.

Bless him. I'd leave it, Scott, it ain't worth it!

It's a classic Phil-Mitchell-in-a-rage scene and Ian's on the receiving end.

But when you want someone to cease doing something, what do you say?

Is it A, stop, or B, slop?

-Slop.

-What?

-Slop.

-I'll give you one more guess.

-Slop.

-I'm sorry, Ian, the answer I was looking for was A, stop.

Received and acknowledged, sir. Picard out.

Jean Luc Picard, ever the stern- faced model of professionalism.

Except when he goes through the turbo lift doors and has a quick girn. You missed it, didn't you?

Don't worry, here it is again.

He just boldly girned where no man has girned before.

In this clip from Buffy, fiendish but foxy teacher Miss French is making herself a sandwich.

She's a sucker for fresh ingredients.

I think I had one of those myself from a motorway services.

But there's something very wrong here.

Besides a lady chewing live insects.

Because when she starts eating, her sleeves are up, then she opens the box, her sleeves are down.

And finally, they're back up again.

Add to that the insect sandwich and all the vampire business and you've

got a scene that's more disturbing than Andrew Lloyd Webber's smile.

-More odd goings on in Buffy.

-The werewolf!

A werewolf has gone AWOL and they need to find him/it quickly.

But Giles isn't wearing his glasses.

Oh, he is. Problem solved.

Problem unsolved! And solved again.

I think we're sorted. That werewolf is history. My mistake! The glasses are.

Grey's Anatomy and Patrick Dempsey takes his earphones out cos he's

being talked at by a lady.

-But he pretends he still can't hear her anyway.

-Am I invisible? I'm feeling strangely invisible.

-Also inaudible.

-What?

-And who can blame him, she really is banging on.

-So I guess dinner shopping is out?

-Yeah.

-Might as well wrap the headphones up.

-Sorry.

-You're not. I'm just trying to figure out why you're not.

And up. A very long wire.

And put them away.

D'oh! Hang on, they're still round his neck.

Unless that's his spare set.

Pat, there's only so much Peter Andre a man can listen to.

When it comes to bad dead acting, you'd have to go back a long way to find a poorer example than this.

Centuries back, to be precise. In this clip from Xena, everyone thinks the great warrior princess is dead.

Though quite why is anyone's guess.

Clue one, blood is still coursing through her jugular ten to the dozen.

Clue two, in a moment, she clearly blinks.

And clue three, this is season one.

-There's another five series of this rubbish.

-We've got to get out of here.

Yes, no, no, I did not book this one.

This clip from Arrested Development will delight fans of continuity errors and flowers alike.

There's the vicious and sexy Lindsey, who's just got back with some shopping.

We see her take out this bunch of posies and put them on the counter.

So far so good. Jason Bateman does some talking.

Back to Linds and this enormous vase that she's about to dump the flowers into. When...

They're suddenly back in the bag again.

Yeah, that is a TV mistake and I'll be honest, I'm disappointed by that.

And so's he.

Band of Brothers, and Sergeant Major Schwimmer is furious with one of his soldiers.

Christiansen, why is there no water in your canteen?!

It's not just about the water. Look, this soldier's gun keeps jumping from one shoulder to the other.

There it is on the right.

-And there it is on the left.

-You will repeat all 12 miles...!

And back again. That's dangerous with a loaded weapon.

He was a good man, your father.

Here's Uncle Junior in The Sopranos and he's hopping mad.

He must have lost the remote or worse, forgot to tape Minder.

Whatever, it's made him so angry that his glasses momentarily disappear.

Just don't anyone tell him he accidentally put a red sock in with the whites.

Kate must have a tiny vagina.

Here we are in that city where there's all that sex.

And the girls are in the khazi doing lady things.

Sometimes you just know.

With the right match, it's fate.

Sarah Jessica Parker's sorting her hair out.

She's tying it out in a scrunchie, but that's SJP hair, so it'll need special restraints.

So she straps it down twice with the same scrunchie.

But spin on, cos it was all worth it.

Now she looks lovely

and not at all like a Yorkshire terrier with a Croydon facelift. Super.

Oh, look, it's only 10. How nice.

-There's no coffee.

-The Gilmore Girls, and Lorelai is chatting to

Luke as he tries to fix a toaster by shoving a screwdriver into it.

In a minute, he's going to try and fix the waste disposal

by sticking his winkie into it.

See how he goes to get coffee, leaving the screwdriver in the hole,

and when he returns, screwdriver gone.

Oh, there it is by the side of the toaster.

Right, where's that waste disposal?

Here's Sam and here's his brother, Dean.

Ignore the girl. The ghostbusting siblings from Supernatural.

Dean is played by an actor called Jenson - ignore the girl - and Sam by an actor called Jared.

Are we all clear? Dean is played by Jenson and Sam is played by Jared.

How do I know? Well, in this scene, when they're all meant to be acting,

Dean doesn't call Sam "Sam", he calls him Jared.

Jared, check it out.

Yeah, "Jared, check it out.

"I just ballsed up the scene by calling you by your real name."

Yes, more dumbarsery from the Brothers Grimm.

In this scene, they're supposed to be acting all angry cos they've just been outwitted by this lady.

Although, I reckon a pigeon could outwit these two.

Anyway, the script might be calling for fury but all Jared can manage is a poorly concealed snigger.

-Son of a bitch!

-Remember, this was presumably the best take, the one they actually used.

Makes you wonder how bad the others were. He probably weed himself.

Pride and Prejudice, and I've got to say, Jennifer Ehle makes playing the piano look effortless.

Colin's Impressed. He always uses his fingers.

Not Jen, though, her hands and arms are barely moving.

Do you know, I think she's miming.

-I know you find great enjoyment in professing opinions which are not your own.

-And in miming.

Either that or she's just brilliant at playing the piano.

It's the first thing though, isn't it?

Generous of him, is it not?

What do you think about this?

Here's Tasha and Troy, surely two of Star Trek: The Next Generation's least favourite characters.

-It's not for you.

-Tasha is covered in scarves. Fast forward but they're

made from some weird futuristic space fabric which just disappears.

-Never mind.

-Oh, but I do mind.

They're scarves, Jim, but not as we know it.

They don't half have some trouble with bag straps in Six Feet Under, and props in general.

Just watch these two.

So, who do you think plays Parker in the movie of her life?

Sandy Bullock or Julia Roberts?

They both pull their rucksacks on twice and she loses her water bottle.

They're just not taking this camping thing seriously.

-Anyway, I just wanted to say how wonderful...

-Back to Friends, and a special guest appearance

by Susan Sarandon, the thinking person's MILF, playing a hard- drinking, chain-smoking actress.

Ever the pro, Susan manages to cram both into this scene.

Chain-smoker.

Hard drinker.

Chain-smoker.

I hope my fingers are than nimble when I'm 80.

Well, there it is, TV's Greatest Mistakes.

I'd just like to say thanks to all the people involved tonight

for being so very sloppy in your chosen careers.

It's a good job it's just telly and nothing of any importance

because if this had been a paper round or a Saturday job in a burger bar, you'd have been fired.

Bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd