How much can an editor twist the truth by editting what we see?

• RE: How far can editting fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 07:45 AM, 07-21-06
  • RE: How far can editing fool us?,michel, 08:38 AM, 07-21-06
    • RE: How far can editing fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 10:11 AM, 07-22-06
• RE: How far can editting fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 08:06 AM, 07-21-06
  • RE: How far can editting fool us?,michel, 09:41 AM, 07-21-06
    • RE: How far can editting fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 10:26 AM, 07-22-06
• RE: How far can editting fool us?,aquariaqueen, 11:11 AM, 07-21-06
  • RE: How far can editting fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 10:33 AM, 07-22-06
• RE: How far can editing fool us?,michel, 02:20 PM, 07-22-06
  • RE: How far can editing fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 11:18 PM, 07-22-06
    • RE: How far can editing fool us?,michel, 01:37 PM, 07-23-06
• Micheal,Earl Colby Pottinger, 10:37 PM, 07-24-06
  • RE: Micheal,michel, 08:41 AM, 07-25-06
• RE: How far can editing fool us?,michel, 03:30 PM, 08-06-06
• Opening credits,mavs_fan, 00:33 AM, 08-08-06
  • RE: Opening credits,catsnotkids, 10:04 AM, 08-08-06
    • RE: Opening credits,Earl Colby Pottinger, 01:17 PM, 08-08-06
• RE: How far can editting fool us?,mavs_fan, 11:58 PM, 08-08-06
  • RE: How far can editting fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 12:45 PM, 08-09-06
    • RE: How far can editting fool us?,mavs_fan, 10:02 PM, 08-09-06
• RE: How far can editting fool us?,mavs_fan, 10:13 PM, 08-09-06
  • RE: How far can editing fool us?,michel, 10:29 PM, 08-09-06
    • RE: How far can editing fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 07:24 AM, 08-10-06
      • RE: How far can editing fool us?,stunnerphil, 00:27 AM, 08-15-06
        • RE: How far can editing fool us?,Earl Colby Pottinger, 12:42 PM, 08-15-06
• Time penalty?,mavs_fan, 10:38 PM, 08-15-06
  • RE: Time penalty?,coffeecoffeecoffee, 06:48 AM, 08-19-06

Original Message
"RE: Treasure Hunters OFFICIAL episode summary #5 - "Digging Their Own Graves""
Posted by michel on 07-20-06 at 06:18 PM

We know is that Katie has had tantrums. How many and how long? We do not know. The answer depends on the editors who could show different footage of the same scene and have it broken up in a dozen shots over the 2 episodes of the swamp. It would explain why the Southie Boys were always there. Had it been me, I was gone at the first occasion she slowed us down.

I certainly don't want to excuse Katie but don't underestimate the editor's tricks! The only thing to make of it is that we were not supposed to like the Fogals at first but now the animosity is focusing on Katie with a slight redemption on the parents. Where will it lead? I guess that discussion should go in the Fogal thread.

***************************************************************

Still editting can only go so far. When we see her in the middle of the swamp we see shots from all around her, she is clearly not near the docks where we see more of her breaking down. This can mean only one of three things:

1) It was all one big continuous tantrums covering minutes of time. This does not make her look good.

2) She threw more than one tantrum in the swamp. This does not make her look good.

3) These (two teams, two cameras) camera-men are real good, they were able to shoot her from multiple angles - both coming and going and still were able to get shots with no sign of the river, docks, or the wide open wetlands we see later.

1,2 are more believable to me. 3 would seem likely if all we saw were front shots of Katye. I have not put this in Fogal's thread - I think this is more a discussion is how far can the editors fool us with misdirection. Comments?

LAST EDITED ON 07-21-06 AT 09:54 AM (EST)

Editing is my favorite thing to analyze apart from each player's game plan. It is especially rewarding to do so in Survivor, a social game moreso than in Races where the editing is more linear. To give you an idea here are some examples taken from last season's Survivor analysis by the editing expert Veruca Salt:

1) The first scene makes us think the La Mina tribe is agreeing on keeping Ruth, but only Dan was adamant in keeping her. (From Veruca's analysis): There were actually TWO separate conversations that happened. My thoughts on how this basically occurred was that perhaps Dan mulled over Ruth Marie as a “fifth” and he speaks to Terry only about it which Terry agrees with but another conversation at another time occurs with the young men and Terry. I do not believe Dan was privy to that conversation and I believe that other suggestions were made. The shots of the four men have various close up shots that suggest Dan may have been shown to be there for this conversation when I do not think he was but in actuality, had a separate conversation with Terry. In the first portion where Dan is shown Dan has his buff on at this point

Terry (in voice over) “We’ve got the numbers here, got the four guys and stuff; all strong guys." The shot then goes to Nick only:

Nick “Yeah”

The shot then goes back to Terry but Terry does not look like he is directing the conversation as it is made to appear, it looks like he is listening.....

Nick “When we merge, we need a fifth...”
Terry (in voiceover) “Right” (shot of Ruth Marie walking in the distance is shown)
Nick (in voiceover) “...and Dan suggested Ruth Marie”(This part of Nick’s sentence was not shown coming out of Nick’s mouth; it sounded extremely edited and it may very well have been from a confessional Nick had made at another time. (Remember the illusion is being created that all four men are talking and agreeing completely that Ruth Marie will be their “fifth”)

The next shot goes to Dan who is standing with Terry but Dan suddenly is NOT wearing his buff and we see Dan speaking with Terry and says::

Dan “I said okay, final five to Ruth Marie”
Terry “That’s fine, that’s fine”

(Again, I believe that Dan is only talking to Terry here. We then see Terry, Nick and Austing, Dan is NOT shown and we have a voiceover)

Terry (voiceover) “We got a really strong alliance of four guys and KIND OF a fifth RIGHT NOW is Ruth Marie” (During this we see another shot of Ruth Marie in the distance)

Again, clearly there had to have been two separate conversations, Dan had his buff on in the early shot of him with “all four men” then the buff is gone during the supposed same conversation with “all four men” As indicated it appears that Dan thought about Ruth Marie and suggested same to Terry. Note how Terry tells us “kind of a fifth right now” which sounds extremely “willy nilly” whereas the intent of this scene was to show the audience it was a solid situation which all four men agreed upon.

Later on in the same episode they voted Ruth off.

2)In the first episode, we saw Courtney winking at Aras when the tribes were first introduced. We kept note of it as a possible clue down the line. They did wind up on the same tribe but were constantly at odds. The wink we had seen never even occured. From picture gallery shots we found out later that the images we had seen on TV of Courtney winking were reversed. On it Danielle, a tribemate, was standing to Courtney's left while the picture gallery showed she had been standing on her right troughout. Courtney had blinked while looking at the setting sun! In the opposite direction of where Aras was standing!

3) Discussing Misty's boot we join a conversation as Austin says, "What about Misty..." The idea was to make us think Austin first suggested Misty as the boot option but the conversation had been going on before we joined it. Dan and Terry had been the ones suggesting Misty and Austin was responding to their suggestion. That was to make us think Terry wasn't the one deciding for the whole tribe.

Back to Treasure Hunters
We see 45 minutes of action of events that, in Treasure Hunter lasts over a day. With numerous cameras filming the different teams, editors can pick and chose what they show us. They cannot create images but they can certainly stress a trait of character. As far as the Katie's rant goes, if it was one rant that lasted 2 minutes as they approached the dock, it could have covered a distance of 100 yards. There would have been plenty of occasions where shots wouldn't include the river. Those 120 seconds could have been broken up in 10 sequences and interspersed through both swamp episodes. Suddenly a momentary loss of control, something that could be understood, becomes a constant uncontrolled breakdown.

I'm not saying that is what happened, I just want to remind everyone that things aren't exactly as we see it. The important point is that the scenes had a redemption quality to the Fogal parents. That forces us to consider them not only as villains who go far without winning but also as possible winners.

LAST EDITED ON 07-22-06 AT 10:15 AM (EST)

First, the early shots clearly were not right beside the water, the 100 yard figure you gave does works. It really is amazing how short a distance you can really see even when the trees are thin and widely scattered like we saw in the swamp.

However, 120 seconds (two minutes)! Again, I want to know if you have ever seem an adult act that way for so long, unless they were mentally handicaped? The fact is no matter how we view the editting and assume the worse of the edittors, Katye still comes out looking very bad. She is 25 after all. Do you know anyone personally who acted that way at 25? Editting can make it look like she did it longer than in reality, but she still did it.

*****************************

Well, I don't know what the general view is towards the Focals after we see Katye's tantrums. But while I now understand why Mr. Fogal does not rush to her aid, my personally opinion of the parents has not improved at all. After-all these parents raised this child! Katye is the product of her parents, and her parents think she is fine. Yes, I know some parents have children with developmental problems, but parents who care for thier children and thier problems would not have bought them onto a show like this.

It is very telling that the Fogals on their website posted early messages that made it clear that they did not expect to be editted the way they were. Only someone who regularly turns a blind eye to Katye's tantrums would think they would not be in the show. Simply put the Fogals are poor parents.

The Fact remains that if you put me on Treasure Hunters or The Amazing Race, (I dare, I double dare to put me on ) I don't care how you try to edit me to show my worse, you still will not get something like Katye's tantrums from me or 90%+ of all adults out there. I might do a Colin, maybe yell like J&V without the hand gestures, but the type of meltdown Katye gives about giving up? Or not wanting to flashlight when it is getting dark because it is too much work?

The Fogals have not been redeem themselves to me, first I need to see them actively helping someone other than themselves. Hech, a prayer where they ask God to help others would be a good start, and maybe stop lying to each other about why they do what they do.

The Wild Harlons is another good example. There are suggestions that they got help from the show - why? - because it was just too clear that they mostly were as dumb as they were shown.

Did the other teams make dumb mistakes that were not shown? Probably. But 11 hours in the mine??? Burger runs in the middle of a race??? Looking in trash cans and under every piece of trash on a marked trail (or am I the only one who notice the pieces of cloth tied to the trees?). These people were dumb, and the only way to edit them as smart is not show them for more than two minutes a show.

Browns were fat and slow, I like the Browns, I would not even minded if they had won the treasure, but no amount of editting was going to hid how fat the largest was or that he was always at the back of the pack. You could edit out is worse times so he looked healthier than he was, but that still would not speed up the teams positions in the race.

Team USA is coming across as smarter and stronger than any team of all-girl models that I have seen on TAR, but again the material is not there to make them look like geniuses. The material does seem to exist to show them as just a bunch of air-heads discussing make-up and clothes, but their performance matchs with how they are presently editted - A Good Girl Team.

Sometimes I think people think edittors have more power to shape the story than they really do, people actions give the edittor a range of how they can show someone, but they can't edit in something that is not there. Fogals could have been show as a normal competing team, they could not be shown as a team that stops and help everyone along the way, such actions would fit the personalities of people who have carried out some of the things we have seen them do already.

Besides the editing tricks mentioned in my post #3, usually editing will try to either hide the eventual winner so that it is a pleasant surprise for the audience, justify the winner by painting them in a better light than the opposition or show the story of how the winners emerged from the competiton.

-After the first episode, it appeared that Team Air Force were the toughest competiton and with other teams commenting on their performance, their edit has reamained very positive. The worrisome thing about their edit is that we don't have anything to complete that picture. It would be good to see some doubts creep in their confessionals. Could that mean they finish a close second? If their edit doesn't evolve, it may very well be the case.

-The Southie Boys first seemed to have the edit of the surprise team. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention but the fact that I don't think many viewers could give us their name without looking at their bios isn't a good sign however. There is still time to make us root for them however.

-The ex-CIA were the other pre-season favorites. Their edit has been even more non-existant than the Southie Boys. It makes me feel they do not make the finale.

-The Fogals have received the most complex edit. On its own it doesn't mean they win. In fact, it first looked that they would last until the finale as the villains we want to see crash and burn and then deliver just that. The redemption edit that is especially apparent in the father could mean they are the winners. It would need a lot more work to make it palatable to most viewers but then they would be remembered! For a first season, it would be something the editors would be happy with.

All other teams do not have signs that point to important players in the end. As such, editors don't bother doing anything special. Hopefully they could be good for comic relief or some drama. Notice how the moment of doubts of Miss USA were stressed. (stupid name for a 3 person team isn't it?). In general the cast, except for the Hanlons and the Fogals, hasn't given the editors much to work with.

Team Air Force does seem to be too good to be true, doesn't it . I am almost sure they will make the top 3. Ex-CIA could be the suprise winners, really, there is just enough epsiodes left for them to develop a story line and go on to win.

Fogals do have alot of screen time, and I am sure you are right that they make it to the end. But personally I don't see redemption just another way to look at them badly.

Now the other teams all seem to have major faults in thier gameplay (the Fogals too, but like you say the edit suggest they will be around) but I must say the Team USA is shown in a better light than any all girl model team on TAR, it would be fun to see them out last the Team Genuis.

I have been wondering....

Are some of our opinions based upon the talent of the individual team's camera man? Some can be portrayed so vastly different than other teams.

It's as if you gave me a camera, and 3 other people and tell us to take a picture of a tree, mine would be the incredibly boring picture, where as, someone else's would be magnificent.

I think the edittors have more control than the camera man. No matter what his skills, his shots mean nothing if they end up on the cutting room floor. And don't forget s/he is filming for about 12 hours a day, and at most we see ten-fifteen minutes of shots on our screen.

This does not mean the camera person is unimportant. A good one will get that once in a lifetime shot then no edittor can resist.

The question isn't to determine if Katie is a miserable cry baby in real life or not but rather why is she so heavily portrayed as such. Remember, they showed the highlites of her hysteric fits as if it was the top 10 moments on a sport's channel! Now, even if every crisis occured as shown which I doubt because the Southie Boys stuck around for too many of them, the replays were an editing decision to reinforce our reaction. I'll never meet her in real life so I don't care at all about her in real life. The only (fleating) interest I have in her is to determine who will find the treasure.

Under stress, I've known plenty of adults who lose control momentarily. Some scream and cry uncontrollably at every major thunder storms. Take the sound of thunder off and repeat those shots often enough and "voilà!" you've created a Katie. The swamp was a stressfull situation and it lasted I'd guess 8 hours. The boat ride alone was over 3 hours long! Without the crying part, I'd probably have screamed and hurled insults at the production staff. Thankfully, those "F*ck you NBC", would have been edited out!

If the Fogals do win or even make it to the final, NBC knows that they will be remembered. The question they should have is by how many? Will there still be an audience for the finale?

I think we may be posting with cross purposes.

If I read you right, you are trying to figure out the long term goals of the edittors. What I am asking is not thier goals/story lines but really how far can we be fooled by the edittors, what are the real limits to editting in itself.

Harlons can not be made to look smart with editting, but I am sure they could have been editted to not look dumb either. Example with very little editting we would never know they got the combination from the Team Genuis.

Fogals ofcourse would not villians, but if the show continues down this vien I don't think you can show them chummy with the other teams.

Minor changes would make Team USA the underdogs to root for, but can they be editted to look like a top three team? Yes that is a real question there.

And is it possible to show AirForce, Ex-CIA or Southie Boys as team to hate? I think it may be possible for atleast one of these teams but all of them? Yes, that is another question.

Question I am asking is HOW FAR can we be fooled?

LAST EDITED ON 07-23-06 AT 01:51 PM (EST)

That would be a great question to ask an editor. I don't think it is a question of simply fooling us but rather to create that storyline from which the winners emerge. The editors shape our views of the contestants to get us to react and therefore build the ratings. That is why I concentrate on the long term. Very little "fooling" needed to be done for teams that were first eliminated as they weren't part of what would make the audience tune in each week. The Hanlons were comedic relief, so put them on camera as much as you can for as long as they are there. The only tricks used would be to enhance their "schtick".

How far can we be fooled? I gave you some examples of short term tricks used in Survivor to keep us guessing what will happen next. I've got a few more that show long term effect:

-Survivor Outback was the second season of the series that has now 12 editions. To this day, people who only watch the show each week, argue that the winner, Tina, didn't do much but was lucky to be brought along by Colby who was a strong athlete. People who listened to interviews and Insider information say that Tina masterminded the strategy and Colby actually followed her lead! Why not show more of Tina's strategy? The previous season's winner had been the mastermind and people loved/hated him for his cutthroat way of playing the game. For the second season, the editors thought best to show Tina's good nature. We only got glimpses of her strategies.

-Stephenie was a strong athletic woman who played in season 10 but was on a tribe that got obliterated. She was the last one remaining and the audience fell in love with the underdog who had no chance of beating the machine-like tribe she faced. So much that she was brought back in Season 11. What happened to "America's sweetheart" the second time? She became StepheME, hated for her constant whining and her b*tchy attitude. Sure her game changed from one season to the other, but people that were on those seasons agreed that Stephenie wasn't as good as she was portrayed in Season 10 or as bad as people saw her in season 11. The "real" Stephenie was always somewhere in the middle. The editors chose to hide some of her whining the first time since she faced terrible odds and her determination was endearing i.e. good for ratings. In her second try she was in charge but eventually lost to a likeable woman who herself had been an underdog. The bad side came out to show the contrast between the 2 and why the new girl deserved the win.

On to TAR: Remember how in one of the first episodes we heard the Frat Boys say that the hippies always follow and can't be trusted. We were surprised to hear that and actually noted that it showed another bad side of the Frat Boys. Besides being obsessed with the girls, they became poor sports. Only later did we see the bad side of the hippies in their confrontation with MoJo. They "really" were followers and "really" were shady but by that time the audience had "hippy love". If animosity had been felt early on by the audience, it is very probable that a majority of the audience would have taken MoJo's side against the hippies. That would have been bad for ratings if people had tuned out once the hippies outlasted MoJo. In retrospect, is it surprising that the Hippies, who benefitted from the editors choices, beat the Frat Boys who were made to look bad with the accusations we didn't originally believe?

Those examples are why I think following the long term storylines and depiction of players can enable us to avoid being fooled.

To answer it in the Treasure Hunters, imagine they get a confessional from one of the Air Force team and ask first:
Q-How do you like your chances?
A-We've been lucky. That has helped us. Hopefully, we can stay ahead of the competition. We hope to beat them all.
Q-What do you think of the Hanlons?
A-They're not that bright.

Now imagine the editors cut it so that only this airs: "We hope to beat them all. We can stay ahead of the competition. They're not that bright."
Wouldn't you suddenly start hating them? If you remind yourself that in editing, when someone talks bad about the competition WITHOUT confirmation from other sources, then you are left to see that it simply doesn't bode well for the long term success of the ones making the comments!

By the way; the Fogals have been shown to work with and be "chummy" with The Southie Boys and Air Force. That is part of the redemption I talked about. What if those are the final 3 teams? The animosity was stronger between the Southie Boys and Air Force when the latter accused the former of getting all teams against them. Could the Fogals wind up as the calm racers in that grouping? We don't know but it could be edited that way!

Looks like we were both right in our own ways.

First, going back to the swamp, there was one fleeting shot that did show the water in the distance (75-150 meters), I now believe you are correct in stating the daughter only blew up once and the edittors spread it around to make her look extra bad. I still say her actions were more extreme than most people's but the edittor played it up.

On the other hand I thought the Focals play would come back to bite them, and in this last leg with them we see other teams have gotten very leary of them and take pleasure in beating them to clues.

Your redemption story-line was clearly being push by the edittors since this was thier final leg, it however was done for diffirent reasons than you expected.

Maybe it is just me, but it looks like the edittors of T.H. have really learnt from the other R.TV. shows out there and doing a great job in fooling us.

Who would ever think Air Force would be in danger of being in last place with so many other teams still playing.

Looking forward to your comments.

LAST EDITED ON 07-25-06 AT 09:27 AM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON 07-25-06 AT 09:22 AM (EST)

I put some comments on editing in your episode thread. I saw the recap and thought Kayte had to have at least 2 outburts! Undoubtedly, the editors pressed her outburt(s!) for all they could.

I misread it but it is fairly common to give redemption to a team in their last few episodes. I had been thinking it meant they would last longer because they were the only team in which the editors had invested extra airtime besides the hilarious Hanlons. Now we are left with 5 teams we know very little about and appear mainly boring. How many of their first names can you give without looking it up? I count 8 myself but haven't paid the attention I usually do to Survivor or TAR. Two of those 8 names are the 2 Matt in Air Force but which is the friend, which is the husband? Hopefully Brooke knows! It does reinforce the view that Air Force will be the winners, last night was enough to introduce doubts. The Southie Boys are the second option for winners as they have started to emerge a bit

As I wrote in the other thread, The Fogals calling out to Air Force had a self-serving side, keeping both teams together in case they were wrong. We can't know their real motives, only what was decided to let us see. As before, when the editors may have hidden their good sides to stress only the bad and create villains, now it would have been time to hide the bad in their swan song.

ECP, you may enjoy this: I know our main discussion of editing tricks was about the Fogals and cutting and putting scenes out of sequence, but another trick is how to present the eventual winners. Do you hide them, do you slowly reveal them or do you make them the focus of the show? Air-Force is such a stronger team than the rest that if they are to win, the editors didn't trick us. They showed them and all their good work with 1 episode to make us doubt.

However after last week, I'm starting to think the "Lets-Dum-it-down" team is going to be our surprise winners. The Not-So-Genius had what appeared to be a swan song episode with a lot of focus on Sam's difficulties during the climb, his team mates encouraging him on, his perseverance and final accomplishment. Since it wasn't a swan song, it could be the start of a new arc that leads them to the win.

It was a team that looked dead in the waters not too long ago.
If the grads don't get injured, the Brownies aren't there in the swamp to be last and keep the Not-So-Genius in. The Grads had been better than Miss Usa so they could've been ahead, leaving no one for the Not-So-Geniuses to beat. I guess if they do win you'd have an example as to how far the editors can trick us!

Did ya'll notice in the opening recap, when the southie boys were retelling the water on the map idea from last week - one of them said "It made us look like, hey we can play with these guys!" And then the editors gave us a shot of one of the southie boys grinning with a chhhiiing! special effects enhanced smile? It looked for all the world like a cartoon hero shot.

Does this point to the southies winning?

I wondered about the kind edit the Southies have been getting as potentially pointing to a win. It seemed obvious last night that ExCIA was going to be eliminated - we've seen almost nothing of them - to the point where I barely recognize their team members. No character development for them at all.

The editors want us to like the winners - there would have been more attention paid to ExCIA if they were going to be in the top three, it seems.

Of course, the Southies argument last night pointed to a lack of team work being their potential demise in the next episode. The Geniuses have been set up for an over-think failure.

Setup? They are over-think failures! It is amazing how many times they make this type of mistake. Only the fact that they really are smart let's them recover in record time. I really have doubts of them winning this hunt.

What would the task have been instead of the ledge if the Browns were still in the game?

I don't think there's anyway one of tbe Browns could have stayed on the ledge with there size.

Would we have seen a different task?

Nope, the 'thinnest' one would just about make it.

Which one is the "thinnest one" that could make it?

They could probably stand on the ledge at the window. I don't think they could stay on the ledge between windows. Particulary after reviewing the shots of players on the ledge posted on the NBC website.

Why have we not seen more of Air Force?

They seem like such a dominant team I'd love to see 10 similarly stong teams run this race.

Do we not see more of them because it would make us feel disappointed when another team wins?

Or does Air Force refuse to play the AD PLACEMENT GAME. I recall when Air Force were the 1st to get a phone call Brooke just said "Hey guys we've got a call". Most other teams seem more likely to say "Hey guys, we've got a motorola call." - So do the editors show less of Air Force than they otherwise might do to product tag lines?

Or are the editors trying to "hide" the eventual winners as much as they can?

On the other hand it may just be my impression that they are getting short changed on face time.

LAST EDITED ON 08-09-06 AT 10:32 PM (EST)

LAST EDITED ON 08-09-06 AT 10:30 PM (EST)

After episode 1, viewers could tell only 4 teams from the others. The Hanlons, the Brownies and the Fogals for obvious reasons and Team Air Force "the real Hunters". If they are to win, their victory couldn't be said to have been hidden by the editors.

Some dominant winners do get edited for us to admire their strategy. Tom on Survivor even got a hero edit. Those winners are either loved or hated depending on the viewer. The restraint that you feel in the Air Force's edit (that I don't necessarily see), may be to avoid such an "all or nothing" reaction. More realistically, if they are winners, it is because the editors don't know how to develop characters. Like I wrote in the episode summary, we hardly knew the "Spooks" even if they were Final 4.

The other possibility is that we do have a surprise winner and if you look at my post #14, that could be the "Dummies".

That would be a surprise, but maybe the last clue/task is a pure brain one. Normally Air Force is ahead because they are both bright and fast moving. If the 'Dummies' win the task/clue must not need them to get pshyical for them to better Air Force.

Maybe possible, but I am still betting on Southie Boys over 'Dummies'.

i dont know if this is where this belongs but something that i notice throughout the show has been when a team seems totally confused then out of nowhere the solution comes to them for some of the puzzles

In the case of every team except for the Harlons, I think the edittor just cut out the time spent coming to the solution. Yes, I think the edittors need to show us thos HaHa! moments too.

Did Air Force get a Time penalty for using the Computer at the Fire Station?

At the start of the show, the host said that from here on out the teams can't use their computers. And technically Air Force didn't use their computer - they used someone elses.

But I find it hard to believe that It took Air Force an HOUR to look up Francis Scott Key on Ask.com. And an hour is specfically the amount of time Air Force said they lost by stopping at the Fire Station.

Too, when Matt is doing his confessional to the camera in refrence to stopping and getting help at the fire station - his comments look a little herky-jerky like chunks may have been cut out.
Specifically:
Visual shot of Matt - "These great firemen end up helping us out and"
Voice over of Matt - "We discover that Francis Scott Key wrote the star spangled banner while he was on this truce ship".
Visual shot of Matt - "It's pretty neat (the picture jerks here) to get that (the picture jerks again) little glimpse of you know the history, that's something we've done on every other leg of this".

The combination of what looks to me like an odd confessional edit for Matt in regards to the fire station, the odd hour that was lost, and the prohibition against using their computers make me think Air Force recieved a time penalty we weren't shown. (How else could the producers level the playing against the team of cyborg TERMINATORS sent back from the future to steal America's hidden treasure?)

That would be harsh, especially if it meant the Geniuses win from a crappy penalty! I really hope not! But I still have faith the geniuses will get passed in the final race for treasure...