There’s no denying just how much Netflix has changed the game with its original series, making marathon TV sessions and binge watching completely normal. But the streaming service’s most ambitious projects aren’t without some mistakes, so we’ve singled out some of our favourites to watch for during your next binge.
Here are Screen Rant’s 10 Biggest Mistakes in Popular Netflix Series.
Narcos
When you set a series or film in the 1970s or 80s, you find out fast just how much technology has changed in the decades since. The lack of cell phones or GLP is a plot point Narcos’ look at Pablo Escobar’s rise to power, but some laughably modern gadgets made their way into the show regardless. When the lead DEA Agent arrives in Colombia, he has his passport scanned on a modern photocopier - you can even spot the paper used to hide the touchscreen. A xerox machine at that time would have looked more like a printing press, but it’s the compact satellite phones that put them to shame. The worst offender: an Ericsson R290, which wasn’t released until the year 2000, more than a decade ahead of the show’s setting.
Jessica Jones
Marvel’s alcoholic, superpowered private eye is an expert at getting into and out of tight spots, and finding a way past every locked door. But when Jessica Jones heads into a hospital emergency room in “AKA Crush Synrome”, she needs to find a disguise to fit in before getting what she’s after. But back up: the “authorized personnel only sign was on our side of the door, meaning she was leaving the department, not heading in. It makes sense if the show was filmed in a working hospital, but the writing gives the switch away.
The heroes and villains of the Avengers universe may be no-shows in Marvel’s Netflix series, but Jessica Jones still lives in the same world. Or does she? When she heads to the top of Manhattan Bridge to take in the city in “AKA Top Shelf Perverts,” Stark Tower, prominently featured in The Avengers, is missing from the skyline. What audiences can spot is the MetLife building, the skyscraper that Stark’s eye catching tower should be sitting on top of. It may just be a small effects mistake, but shows that Marvel’s Netflix and movie worlds don’t overlap as much as some fans hoped.
Bloodline
The family drama and tension of Bloodline all begins when a troublemaking son returns to his childhood home - with his big brother there to greet him. Except he doesn’t arrive on the bus that he’s supposed to - or the one after it. It’s a sign of the headaches he’ll cause in the coming weeks, but loses a bit of its impact when you realize the producers only filmed one shot, with the exact same passengers stepping off of back-to-back buses. Maybe the show had even more hallucinations than we thought?
Bloodline is filled with threatening characters and scenes, but one is spoiled by a pretty laughable mistake. When a character is getting beaten for information in “Part 12,” his assailant drives the point home by pressing the barrel of his gun into his skull. Or, the barrel of his rubber gun, since it can clearly be seen bending against the force. Nobody caught it but the viewer so no harm, no foul.
Daredevil
It isn’t until the sixth episode of Daredevil that the hero Matt Murdock squares off against the Kingpin - and it’s not even face to face. The pair have a tense conversation over police walkie-talkies, which should be harder than it sounds. Two-way radios like that mean they can either talk or listen, but they’d have to take their finger off the call button to even hear the other end. The sound effects pop in every once in a while, but the two carry out the scene as if they’re talking on the phone. Probably for the best, since one interruption or rhetorical question would make the entire scene fall apart… if it was actually done right.
Not every mistake is so big, but even the little ones are worth catching. When Matt shares a latte with his local priest in “Speak of The Devil,” he takes it without sugar. Probably because his super-hearing told him that the sugar dispenser on the table was only a prop. The priest didn’t get the memo, so the audience had to watch as he tries but fails to pour any out, only to give up once he realizes the mistake.
Orange is The New Black
Prison inmates can lose their cool at any minute - a point proven when a secret cellphone is discovered in “Blood Donut,” sending the inmate using it into a rage, taking her anger out on a washroom stall door. It’s a intense moment, but Orange is The New Black’s production didn’t want things to get too violent. When the camera goes for a dramatic pan down the stall, the spring mounted on the inside to keep the actual walls from getting damage. Either that, or a heavy metal spring and duct tape are standard issue for women’s prisons.
Props are one thing, but we explained in a previous video why giving major characters visible tattoos can lead to some headaches down the road. The mistake is repeated, when Piper shows a brightly-colored fish tattooed on the back of her neck in the pilot episode. The crew had clearly forgotten by season 2, when the tattoo has magically vanished from her neck completely.
House of Cards
Remember the good old days, when an angry phone call could end with a slam, or a glass of water thrown on a computer could result in smoke and sparks? Apparently the makers of House of Cards think the same rules apply. When one character is enraged at video footage being shown on his laptop in “Chapter 35,” he splashes his drink against it, wrecking the monitor. Except anyone who’s ever spilled on their laptop knows that’s never the case in the digital age. The actor clearly matched the splash to the video freezing - it’s close, but still all wrong.
Conclusion
Those are some of the mistakes, errors, and accidents we spotted in hit Netflix originals, but which of your favourites did we miss? Let us know in the comments for next time, and remember to subscribe to our channel for more videos like this one!
