Episode 7 Great TV Mistakes

Hello, I'm Robert Webb.

Welcome to Great TV Mistakes.

Now, I know what you're saying - "But people in telly don't make mistakes.

"They're all perfect, like you, Rob."

Not true. Everyone makes mistakes.

You just called me Rob, for instance.

And no-one but no-one calls me Rob unless I give them permission. Understand?!

Don't worry. People in telly are just like you.

They mess up. A crew member appears in the back of shot, a prop changes colour,

someone commissions another series of My Family.

Mistakes get made, and that's where we come in.

We find these embarrassing errors and make a show out of them.

Some people might call that schadenfreude. I just call it funny.

Enjoy.

Hey, Magnum's in Friends.

Look at the size of the bloke. They're having to widen the shot 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.

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!

Yeah, he's got his space boot 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?

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.'

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!"

But what I said was a statement of fact.

I won't condone theft, but everyone knows it's traditional

when checking out of a hotel to snatch a towel.

But apparently in deep space it's equally common when being discharged from sick bay, to nick a pillow.

Two pillows in this shot,

one pillow in this.

Don't play the innocent with me, young man.

I know what you're hiding in your space trousers.

-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.

Thanks to all of our contributors for being so sloppy.

It's a good job it's telly and nothing more important, like a paper round,

otherwise you'd have been fired. Bye-bye!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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