There are thousands but this is one of my favorites:
NCIS, season 2, Episode 12 “Doppelgänger”
Now others have pointed out that NCIS had some outrageous geek mistakes, times where the characters not only violate common sense but break the laws of physics or mathematics. All in all, the show is watchable because it is laughable. Very little thought is involved.
In this particular episode, the case ends up focused on a young software engineer involved in the overhaul of a computer system. The young man fakes his own death and the show regulars are trying to figure out why.
Zoom in on the forensic nerd “Abby”, one of my favorite female roles of that time. She’s a massive geek, dresses as a goth, absolutely loves her job, and routinely does impossible things with technology.
In this episode, we see her struggle as she complains about reading thousands of lines of code written by the young programmer to find some clue.
We zoom in on the monitor. “I found it,” she exclaims as she draws the attention of a coworker to the screen. We zoom in on the screen.
IT’S GOBBLEDYGOOK . The screen does not show code. It doesn’t even show opcode or god forbid machine language. It’s a random stream of characters and symbols.
“It’s right there, Gibbs! He’s skimming a few dollars off of each transaction. He’d have millions!”
I like to suspend disbelief when watching NCIS. But this was way too far.