I remember when Hunt for Red October hit theaters, and word came out that the Navy had demanded that the displays (particularly the sonar waterfall) be screwed up, because in their original form they were too close to reality and the Navy was afraid of revealing operational capabilities.
MacGuyver was the same way. They had tech advisors from Stanford but would always leave out a key ingredient or two whenever Angus would cook up a bomb or tear gas or something potentially dangerous.