the fall of netflix's the circle
When season 1 of Netflix’s The Circle premiered over two years ago, it was an instant hit. For a reality show, it was unusually wholesome. If there was any drama in season 1, I don’t remember it. The five finalists (especially Shubham and Joey) are iconic and memorable to this day because on screen, they seemed like genuinely good people who came on The Circle to have fun.
Season 2 is when The Circle began transforming into a completely different show because the players were much more strategic and cutthroat. (To a certain degree, I was fine with this, but many viewers were sad to lose the wholesome-ness that the show had previously provided.) Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. Solid portions of season 3 and season 4 were almost unwatchable, and season 1 is still the most universally loved season of the show. All of this begs the question: what on earth has gone wrong with The Circle?
It’s time for us to acknowledge that Michelle Buteau’s narration is—and always has been—poorly written.
This is such a minor point, but it must be made. Michelle seems like a lovely person, and this is not a dig at her! It’s a dig at whoever writes her unfunny lines. It’s all very bad. Her disembodied voice starts talking at the most unnecessary moments, it always jumpscares me, and I can’t take it anymore.
The producers have begun casting influencers and I do not want them here.
Though The Circle brands itself as a show about social media, it’s much less about that than it is about social skills, communication, and manipulation. Influencers in real life do not necessarily become influencers because they’re great communicators; they’re just very good at being photogenic or singing or dancing or mukbang-ing or makeup tutorial-ing or whatever else people are into these days. So why are producers convinced that influencers would be interesting contestants on The Circle?
Here’s my hot take: I think the appeal of any run-of-the-mill reality competition show should be that the everyman could win it. Viewers at home want to believe that they too could win Survivor or Big Brother or The Bachelor or The Great British Bake Off if they wanted to. Why should I root for an influencer to win $100,000 on The Circle when they likely make that much money just by doing an ad or two on Instagram? Please give me a break, producers! You’re doing it all wrong!
The catfishes are getting stale.
Season 4 features a nerdy man named Alex who decides to pretend that he’s a young white frat boy named Nathan. Season 1 features a nerdy man named Alex who decides to pretend that he’s a young attractive white guy named Adam. These are two different Alexes who played very similar games and have very similar faces. I’m not joking. Why did producers think that season 4 Alex would be any more compelling than season 1 Alex, who was arguably one of the least interesting players of that legendary season? What is going through the casting producers’ brains? I wish I knew. I wish I could understand.
The players occasionally mistake genuine cruelty for strategy.
In season 3, after being eliminated first, Ava and Chanel were given the opportunity to immediately return to the game by catfishing as another contestant. They chose a very sweet elderly woman named Michelle. (Some context: at this point in the competition, players were suspicious of Michelle exclusively because she told them that she refuses to kiss her dogs on the mouth. Yes, people thought this was weird. This is all completely true and I would never lie to you.) Ava and Chanel re-entered the game as Michelle, which not only predictably wreaked havoc but also genuinely terrified the real Michelle, who did not understand how or why she was being targeted. Though the real Michelle fought tooth and nail to prove that she was her true self, players repeatedly expressed that she seemed much more fake than Ava and Chanel’s Michelle, and by the end of episode 2, the real Michelle was eliminated from the competition.
This sequence of episodes is some of the oddest, most upsetting reality TV I’ve ever seen. Ava and Chanel weren’t necessarily good at catfishing; they just seemed like horrible, mean people. Michelle often seemed on the verge of tears during the game. It was difficult to watch and hard to swallow.
It’s worth noting here that Ava is an influencer. (Chanel is her sister who helps her with her career. No, I have no clue why the producers thought we’d care about these people.) When you’re an influencer who’s been recruited for a reality competition that you’ve probably never watched closely, your gameplay is going to suck! That’s a fact! On the other hand, I’m currently watching a Survivor season composed entirely of superfans, and the strategy is ruthless, but a lot of blindsided players have begun openly congratulating their fellow players for outplaying them, because they’re honored to have been defeated by good, smart strategists. In-game strategy shouldn’t hurt people’s feelings, period. The solution to this issue when it comes to The Circle? Cast players who have planned out strategies that make sense! Don’t implement weird twists that are bound to scare and upset an unsuspecting player! I hope you’re taking notes right now, producers!
Almost everything the contestants do is starting to feel forced and unnatural.
I can only hear people scream, “ALERT??? WHAT DOES THE CIRCLE WANT NOW???” so many times. Whenever this happens, I want to sit them down and say, “Hey. That’s the show. You are trapped in a room for days and sometimes your television screen suddenly says ‘ALERT’ on it and it happens at a very predictable moment because this show is very predictable. Now, I need you to tell me how and why producers are forcing you to act surprised when this happens.”
I almost feel tempted to infiltrate the casting process for this show just so I can attempt an experimental strategy: telling the producers that I will scream and shriek on command! Over half of the contestants they pick are expert screamers and I am tired of it but I guess that’s how you get on The Circle! Thanks to my experimental casting strategy, you might just see me on your screens in season 5, participating in a show that I no longer enjoy!
Does this show like or hate catfishes, and can it make a decision, please?
I said earlier that the catfishes are getting stale, but there have been some incredible catfish players. Unfortunately, a lot of the mini competitions during the course of each season seem designed to expose the catfishes as liars. Let me tell you about the most well-known example of this producer sabotage. In season 2, Jack catfished as his friend Emily, and he did an incredible job! Pretty much everyone believed that he was who he said he was, and he built some solid alliances. But during one of the aforementioned mini competitions that players must participate in, the show asked everyone to use makeup to decorate mannequin heads and to present their creations to each other.
Interesting! What a coincidence that this is the one thing that could’ve exposed Jack as a person who does not apply makeup regularly… and it did expose him! His mannequin was hilariously ugly, everyone became immediately convinced that he was a catfish, and he left the game shortly after! Jack was a fan favorite on season 2, and I personally believe that he had extreme potential to win the entire game if and only if he had not been forced to do this challenge that seemed completely targeted at him. Almost like a test.
The fact that several players in each season are actively pretending to be other people is genuinely the most compelling part of the show, and I think the show knows that. So why do producers rig challenges against them on purpose? If they hate catfishes so much, why do they create twists like the one that eliminated Michelle in season 3? Do they want catfishes to succeed or not? Can they make a consistent decision so I can understand what’s going on?
The show is just getting old.
I can tell that The Circle tries to spice things up in every new season, but the format itself is very tired. Contestants scream and shout and run around, they talk to each other in Circle Chat and speak in hashtags even though no one in real life does this, they are forced to do challenges that do not accomplish anything beyond creating doubt and fear that their fellow players might be catfishing, they dance around their apartments in the longest and most unnecessary reality TV montages I’ve ever seen, etc. It all just keeps going and going and going and I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t. Not when “strategy” can get uncomfortably mean. Not when every single influencer on my screen can’t stop shrieking. Not when the casting producers are so inept that these players aren’t even likable anymore!
BTS will go to the White House next week to talk about anti-Asian hate and Asian representation in general! Regardless of how I or anyone else may perceive our current administration, it’s an honor for BTS to be invited, and in a letter that Namjoon posted yesterday morning, he seems happy about it. I’m excited to see how this unfolds, and I’m very proud of them as usual!
My take on The Circle ended up being much longer than I anticipated, so… that’s it for this week. I’ll return to my regularly scheduled programming next week. In the meantime, here’s a BTS performance that I’ve watched a billion times. This song is about the all-consuming power of materialism in our capitalist society! Fun! Have a perfect weekend!