The Circle (American TV series)

Tim Harcourt is the creative director of Studio Lambert, which produces the British and American versions of the show. Harcourt wondered what a reality show would look like if the people never met face-to-face. He had also been considering the idea of a bird's-eye view-style documentary of an apartment building, seeing into each of their lives. He began to work on The Circle after hearing that Channel 4 was looking for a reality-show format centered on social media.[14]

The British version of the show premiered in 2018, and was renewed for its second season a few months after the first season ended.[15][16] After the first season was Channel 4's "youngest profiling" show in six years, according to the British TV industry magazine Broadcast, talks began of international versions.[14] On October 8, 2018, Netflix announced its partnership with All3Media to create three international versions of The Circle on Netflix, including the American version. Brandon Reigg, Netflix's Vice Principal of Unscripted Content, stated, "We think the show's combination of modern social media interaction and competition will captivate Netflix members around the world, in multiple languages, and we're delighted to partner with Studio Lambert and Motion to produce these three new local versions."[17]

On March 24, 2020, Netflix renewed The Circle for a second and third season.[18]

Each apartment that the players live in is equipped with screens in every room in order for the players to 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. Every day, 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.[19] Throughout the competition the Circle app remains the only way players can communicate with each other.[19]

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."[19]

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."[19][20]

The Circle US was shot entirely in the same apartment building in Salford, England, as the other international versions except for the first series of the original UK show.[21] The apartment building is always prepared with twelve furnished and ready-to-use apartments for the players to live in.[22] The building also has an exercise room and a rooftop lounge, which are also outfitted with cameras and television screens.[23] 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.[24] On the outside of the building is a large, lit up circle made of a roughly 82-foot (25-meter) diameter aluminum track with LED lights strung through and around the circle.[22] In 2019 and 2020 Sean Boyd and the You Are Home team made the contestants apartments available to book via Airbnb in between filming.

Opposite the apartment building was the control room, which was previously part of the Salford University campus that became disused.[22] 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.[22]