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TheLurkerSpeaks wrote:

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AllMenAreIslands wrote:

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Well, if Parvati's little comments in even 1 or 2 of her UTR rated eps were actually wee game-related gems, then she should not have been rated UTR. I'm not saying all her UTRs were wrong, but the doubt that some folks had around here was tied in part to the string of them. And I don't recall her being that "fluffy."

Wrong! UTR doesn't mean "insignificant", it means "under-the-radar". A player can have a very significant moment without it actually playing much direct role in the current events of the episode. Think of it this way. If an episode is a scene from a play, the CP's are the protagonists for good or ill - we know their motivations. The OTT's are the foils and/or obstacles - they place the moral frame of reference. The MOR's are role players - they are involved in the plot and move the story along, but the story isn't really about them. The UTR's are the bit parts, who seem inconsequential to the plot, at least upon the surface, but even they can offer a line that holds greater significance to the work as a whole.

What's different about Survivor is that the roles change from episode to episode since the plot tends to take more twists than the average play....

My disagreement doesn't mean that the winner only has significant UTR time either. The key with a winner's UTR time is that it is used to keep some attention on them even when the plot doesn't involve them. This can be done with a simple narrative turn, a "fluffy" confessional that doesn't really advance the game, or a confessional with a bit of foreshadowing suggesting significance down the road, but not in the present. The latter is more significant, but all of them serve the goal of keeping the winner from disappearing from the consciousness of the audience. Alexis actually got a lot of this early on, which is why she continued to be looked at despite the lack of any real story, but this kind of treatment alone is not enough (unless you are Danni).

OMG. Where to begin? I do agree with the middle paragraph (as quoted.)

Using UTR the way you define it, there's no difference between an important character saying something game-related (which should be CP or a new S rating for just strategy) and an unimportant character making fluffy remarks. Both would get UTR from you.

How can anyone tell the difference when looking back over the merge at 10 or whatever number of sets of ratings? Your definitions overall require too much subjectivity involved, and it's only AFTER the fact that we can tell that this person's UTRs were mostly important, while that person's were actually fluff.

Yes, the UTR is used to keep the person in our sights. When fluffy comments were "allowed" as part of UTR, it's precisely because it was almost as if all you were doing was looking at the person NOT talking. To me, UTR can't have the normal meaning we would give it in "real life." Someone who is flying UTR is not noticed. This is why I suggested that UTR should be used as a rating when someone is being shown onscreen listening to others, but not talking (or only making a fluff comment, a confirmation type of comment to confirm what we're seeing anyway.)

UTR should not be used when there is something of importance being said. For one thing it makes it impossible to work out which of the 10 players at the merge had "strong UTR" and which had "weak UTR," who was saying something important but that's all they did that episode, and who was just reiterating that the challenge was really hard. A rating that is trying to cover contradictory bases ends up confusing people about the true editing intention because it hides the edit rather than reveals it.

Again, I say the UTR should be used when ALL the person got was 1 or 2 fluff comments, but mostly for people who were Seen But Not Heard. That should be the main meaning of UTR in Edgic. It should be a rating with a distinct application, so that we are not having strings of UTR unless that character truly is being Seen but Not Being Heard. This actually incorporates the true meaning of Under the Radar because that player is not talking to us. They are under OUR radar, but still in our sights. If we don't hear something of substance, but we see the person 5 or 6 times throughout the ep, that would rate about a UTR2, I reckon. If we see them 10 times, and they don't say anythign of substances, then it's UTR3 (or 4.) The actual levels should be worked out. The viz rating is to tell us how much UTR there was.

But first - we need to agree that UTR has an identity that does not relate to amount of facetime, but to kind of facetime. In order to do that, we need to assign a kind to it that is not the same as MOR, or CP, or anything else, only less of it. Better to use OTT1 or MOR1 or CP1 if that is what it was, than to use UTR to cover all those kinds of presentations when they are small in amount. Too much is being hidden in our ratings charts, if UTR can be used for everything.

Maybe this season we got lucky, but next time we won't be so lucky to have only one person with a solid Ep 1 gameplan. We'll have two or three, and we'll need to have clearer, crisper and more easily applied ratings.

INV is when someone isn't being given even UTR status. At most, they appear in group shots, peripherally. Obviously they might show up in challenge footage, but it feels like it's by accident. No close-ups, and you hardly even hear Jeff calling their names during the play.

Challenge footage isn't accidental; they usually have way more than they need and they definitely edit challenges in order to show some players. I think that a player who seemed to get "focus" during challenges and nothing else all ep, would be a good choice for the UTR rating. A player who didn't even get that much, and nothing else, is INV.

And yes, there would still be real INVs. The INVs were quite few this season but they definitely did happen and even a new definition of UTR wouldn't have prevented them.