The NCIS Season 4 Scene That Went Too Far

Year after year, season after season, "NCIS" goes from strength to strength. The show has survived the departure of multiple significant actors, and has managed to keep things fresh despite being well into its 19th season. 

Of course, even a seemingly invincible show like this isn't completely devoid of missteps. As is the case with pretty much any TV show with a comparably monumental output, there's the occasional episode where "NCIS" drops the ball for the briefest of moments, and a scene ends up going a little bit too far in one direction or the other. In Season 1, DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly) gave some commentary that wouldn't hold up particularly well in today's work environment. In "NCIS" Season 10, the team's tech savvy failed in a big way when they used a hilariously wrong IP address to track down a criminal. Likewise, "NCIS" Season 4 contains a moment that might not go down as one of the show's finest hours. 

The fourth episode of "NCIS" Season 4 is called "Faking It," and it opens with a pretty impressive roadside arrest scene featuring a police officer called Lou Giotti (guest star Nolan North), a strange man driving a car, a dead man in another car, and the words "NCIS" written in blood. Ominous as this is, some viewers noticed that a key piece of evidence in a follow-up scene makes zero sense, because the bloodied phone in the scene becomes another phone in the blink of an eye. "

"The mobile that McGee [Sean Murray] finds in the car changes design between shots," one fan noted (via the Express). "There is a black section in one shot and not in others. The blood also changes." That's the kind of thing a seasoned Special Agent like McGee should probably comment on or at least notice, but in this case, the show just rolls with what appears to be a prop error. 

In fact, it's entirely possible that "Faking It" wasn't the smoothest shoot in the history of "NCIS," seeing as the error pointed out by this viewer isn't the only one eagle-eyed fans have reported. As one person pointed out on Reddit, cameramen are also visible onscreen in at least one scene.