THE CIRCLE Review: Netflix Dives Into Reality TV at Its Best, Worst, and Most Cringey
Who doesn’t love reality TV? Actually, I would assume that there are more people who don’t like reality TV than do, but I digress. I haven’t watched a reality TV show in years and years, so it was interesting to see what was happening with The Circle on Netflix. And after watching it all, I was surprisingly entertained by the game’s set-up, the players, and outcome.
The “thing” or “twist” about The Circle is that all players live in a single apartment complex, but never see each other. They can only interact through an app set up on their television and other screens throughout their apartments. The Circle app allows players to send private messages, create group chats, post status updates, interact through various games, and view each other’s profiles. At the end of the day, players will rank each other, and those on top then decide who will go home. These very simple rules created a lot of room for strategy, lies, and heartfelt connections between players.
Another interesting part about the game and the conversation as a whole about getting to know people through social media is that some people are 100% fake. In other words, The Circle purposely throws in catfish to mix-up the game and have players deal with more than just popularity.
The reason why the show was actually entertaining and not annoying was because of the in app chemistry and reactions of the players. It was a little silly at first to see these people just talking their heads off to a screen, but it works once you can just enjoy the show for what it is. I was really surprised at how much I cared about who was going home after the second episode, I was genuinely yelling at the screen with my wife in the last few episodes about players’ choices. The cast also made the show really watchable, from a guy pretending to be his girlfriend to a professional basketball player and a happily married man to a teacher, the cast was well varied.
Lastly, if you enjoy awkward conversations, cringeworthy interactions and hilarious flirting, this show has loads of that. It never became annoying or overstayed its welcome either. For every laugh, there was a heart to heart, and for every cringe moment, there was an entertaining surprise.
I’m not saying this show is amazing. This doesn’t beat out most Netflix original content by a long shot. It is reality TV and a bunch of well-contrived drama and laughs. But it is fun to just sit back and watch the chaos unfold as people try to win each other over while lying through their teeth over digital messenger. I would recommend this to just about anyone who wants a relaxing and fun show with some surprising heart attached.
