The Circle is a Britishreality television series and the original version of The Circle franchise. Produced by Studio Lambert and Motion Content Group and airing on Channel 4 The Circle, the series bills itself as a game based around social media, with the concept that "anyone can be anyone in The Circle". Throughout the series, contestants live in the same apartment building but are never allowed to meet. The series is narrated by Sophie Willan, whilst the first and last episode of the first series were hosted by Maya Jama and Alice Levine, later replaced by Emma Willis for the second series. The series has been compared to Big Brother and in format, as well as Black Mirror episode "Nosedive" with the concept of having to rate other people. The first series was won by 26-year-old Internet comedian Alex Hobern, who had played the game claiming to be a 25-year-old woman called Kate, using photos of his real-life girlfriend Millie. Hobern also won the "viewers champion" for an additional £25,000, claiming £75,000 in total. The second series was won by Paddy Smyth, with Tim Wilson winning the "viewers champion" vote. In June 2020, it was announced that The Circle will return with a third series, as well as a celebrity series for Stand Up to Cancer in 2021.
Format
The show's contestants, or "players", all move into a refurbished block of flats in Salford. However, the contestants will never meet face-to-face during the course of the competition, as they will each live in their own individual flat. They will communicate solely using their profiles on a specially-designed app, giving them the ability to portray themselves in any way they choose. Throughout the game the players rate one another. In season 1, the players rated each other from 1 to 5 stars. In future seasons, players had to rank their fellow players from most to least Favourite. At the end of the ratings, their average scores are revealed. Normally, the two highest rated players become "influencers", while the remaining players will be at risk of being "blocked" by the influencers. However, occasionally there may be a twist to the blocking process - varying from the lowest rating players being instantly blocked, the identy of the influencers being a secret, or multiple players being blocked at one time. Blocked players are eliminated from the game, but are given the opportunity to briefly meet one player still in the game. During the final, the contestants rate each other one final time, where the highest rated player wins the series and receives a £50,000 cash prize. The viewers also get to choose their "viewers champion" out of the finalists, with the winner of this receiving £25,000.
Production
The Circle app
Each apartment that the players live in is plastered with screens in every room in order for the players be able to hold conversations with other players as they go about their everyday lives. Each player starts out the game by creating a profile. This includes sharing their age, relationship status, a short bio, and one photo to use as their profile picture. Everyday, the players are allowed to share a status update, explaining their thoughts for the day. Sometimes, either through rewards or passing a certain milestone, the players are allowed to upload another photo to their profile. Throughout the competition the Circle app remains the only way players can communicate with each other. During a typical episode, the Circle prompts participation in a minigame. Tim Harcourt of Studio Lambert says that "some games were really good for bonding them, some were really good for them learning about each other, some were good for testing who's a catfish, some could have been more divisive." Most episodes also included a rating exercise. Each player would rank others in The Circle, then an average score would determine the overall placements of each player. Depending on how high or low their average placement was, the player's ranking would determine whether they became an influencer. Typically the two players with the top rankings would be Influencers, with the advantage of determining the player being eliminated, or "blocked."
Apartment building
The first season of the show was produced in London. From the second season of The Circle, production was moved to a new apartment building in Salford, England - this also became the location of production for other versions of the show. The apartment building is always prepared with twelve furnished and ready-to-use apartments for the players to live in. The building also has an exercise room and a rooftop lounge, which are also outfitted with cameras and television screens. One room in the building, called "the testimonial room," is the room players go to after they are blocked to create their goodbye video to the remaining players. On the outside of the building is a large, lit up circle made of a roughly 82-foot diameter aluminum track with LED lights strung through and around the circle. Opposite the apartment building was the control room, which was previously a college campus that became disused. At any time in the control room, there were between twenty and thirty producers and camera operators working, recording, and sending all the messages from The Circle.
