Continuity errors are impossible for production to eliminate. No matter how savvy the script supervisor and art department are or how big the budget is, continuity errors are just a fact of life in film and television production. However, if it's a high-quality production with a solid team of people, chances are you won't see any continuity errors at all unless you're actively looking for them. The cool thing about spotting continuity errors is that sometimes they give viewers an idea of how the shots are set up in a scene and can put the viewer in the shoes of the production crew.
Broad City is a great example of a high-quality production, complete with a small, tight-knit crew. The series has often been praised for its authenticity and Abbi and Ilana's real-life perfect friendship translated to the screen flawlessly. Broad City also features a lot of smoking and drinking scenes throughout its five seasons, and while most of the continuity errors inevitably come from these scenes, there is a couple of other blink-and-you'll miss it instances that are almost impossible to catch.
10 Water Cooler
In season 1 episode 1, there's a shot where Abbi adds a fresh jug to one of the water coolers at Soulstice. In the next shot, Ilana pops in and surprises her and they start having a conversation. In some of the shots of them talking back and forth, the jug appears to be less full than it was just a few moments ago when Abbi set it up.
Solstice remains Abbi's workplace up until season four when she briefly works a security gig at Anthropologie and as a personal assistant to businesswoman Dana, played by Wanda Sykes.
9 Trey's Smoothie
In the same episode a few moments later, Trey appears with a smoothie in a disposable plastic cup and asks her to clean the women's locker room. As they talk back and forth, the amount of smoothie in Trey's cup changes slightly.
The comedy and great acting in this scene completely hold the viewer's attention and make these small details completely undetectable. Trey is played by Paul W. Downs and was both a writer and executive producer of Broad City, along with Abbi and Ilana.
8 Abbi & Ilana Smoke With A Restaurant Worker
Abbi and Ilana are living it up at a high-end restaurant to celebrate Abbi's 25th birthday in the last episode of season 1. Determined to have a good time and splurge, Ilana hides her shellfish allergy from Abbi, which becomes a problem later. When they step outside to share a blunt, they encounter one of the restaurant staff and offer to share it with him. In the shots that follow, the blunt changes lengths between the three, getting shorter and then longer again.
Anytime a character is smoking in film and television, it's extremely difficult and often a waste of time and money, to make sure every smokeable object is the correct length in each of the shots. Continuity errors can easily happen from editing different shots together in a sequence or if the cigarettes burn too quickly. Viewers don't often notice these small details, so it isn't always necessary to keep track of smoking props.
7 Plastic Bag Full Of Lotion
During a particularly unfortunate series of events in season 1 episode 4, Ilana sits outside a sandwich shop after getting in a fight with Abbi. She takes out a loose plastic bag full of body lotion and starts rubbing it on herself. She then drops it on the ground when she sees a garbage bag full of bagels. She retrieves the bag and starts scarfing them down.
During these shots, if you look carefully, you can see the bag of lotion change position just slightly on the ground in front of her in between cuts. Being a bag of lotion, it would have been difficult for Ilana to place it on the ground and have it retain the same shape for each take.
6 Ilana & Jaime's Boyfriend
In season 2 episode five, Ilana and Abbi attend a party, along with Jaime and his then boyfriend. There are a lot of people smoking and drinking, and at one point the four of them sit on a bed together. Ilana lights up a joint and starts talking with Jaime's boyfriend, sharing the joint with him.
As usual, Ilana does most of the talking, but as they cut back and forth between the two, the joint gets shorter and longer by just a few centimeters.
5 Sparkling Water
One of the more noticeable continuity errors in Broad City happens in season 3 episode when Ilana and Abbi meet up for brunch at a bougie cafe. After getting hassled by the hostess and scrambling to get their table after Ilana drops her bike key into a street grate, they finally sit down together. Disappointed that the bottomless mimosas aren't on the menu anymore, they get even more frazzled when a waiter brings them sparkling water.
After he tells them they're complimentary, however, they ask for two more bottles. The water comes back with two more bottles, and in the next shot, one of the three bottles disappears from the table.
4 Lincoln's Seatbelt
Another more noticeable, but not obvious continuity error is in season 3 episode 2. Lincoln and Ilana are riding back from her doctor's appointment when Lincoln breaks the news to her that he hooked up with someone else. Ilana freaks out and gets out of the car - Lincoln gets nervous until he realizes she's excited for him since they are in an open relationship.
In some of the sequence of shots in this scene, Lincoln seatbelt appears stapped across his body in the wide shot, and then it's off of him for the close-ups and medium shots. From this continuity error, it's likely that the crew started out filming the wide shots, and then did at least two other takes with the camera placed closer. It's possible that during the time the crew reset their positions, Hannibal got out of the car and back in again, and the crew forgot to tell him to buckle his seatbelt.
3 Abbi & Ilana's Joint
At the very end of this same episode, Abbi and Ilana share a joint after they get permanently banned from the co-op. Abbi accepts and makes peace with the fact that she missed the opportunity to get with her crush, Greg, the co-op employee.
While she and Abbi talk, the joint they share changes lengths from the medium shot to the wide. While a few entries on this list deal with joins and blunts, for how much smoking happens throughout the show, the creators do a great job avoiding most continuity errors with smoking, overall.
2 Frozen Yogurt
In season 2 episode 3, Abbi is under the influence of pain medication after getting her wisdom teeth removed. Lincoln tries to give Ilana and Jaime good advice on how to care for Abbi while she's mentally incapacitated, but things quickly go south and Abbi escapes with Bingo Bronson, after Ilana gives her too high of a dose of medication.
Meanwhile, Jaime is struggling to try to get some frozen yogurt for Abbi and can't decide on anything. In this scene, the frozen yogurt Jamie gets is slightly melted in the first shot but then looks new in the next shot. Some takes and shots take more time than others, and under the hot production lights, there's no way the shape of the frozen yogurt could remain constant.
1 License Plate
According to moviemistakes.com, there's a sequence in season 5 episode 10, the show finale, where Ilana tries to flag down a taxi. A Honda Civic is parked behind her - with a yellow New York license plate. The camera pans away to show an approaching taxi, but when it pans back, the Honda has a white New York plate.
IMDb rated the series finale episode, titled "Broad City," as the second-highest-rated episode, coming right behind "Knockoffs." Many critics consider Broad City one of the best shows of the 2010s, and there's no doubt that it will be remembered as one of the best sitcoms on television.
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October 01, 2020 at 05:30AM
