Netflix’s The Circle: 13 things you never knew about the Channel 4 reality show as season 3 starts streaming
- Compared to Big Brother, Catfish and the Black Mirror episode ‘Nosedive’, the hit show sees contestants live in isolation and only communicate through social networking
- But IRL the show is filmed in the UK, not US, the communication platform is not actually voice-activated and the ‘Circle’ chat function is only really open for a few hours a day
Even though the American version of The Circle dropped on Netflix in 2020, the series has been around since 2018. Didn’t realise? Here’s 13 surprising things you didn’t know about the hit reality show, as series 3 lands on Netflix.
The Circle started as a British show, and it’s quickly expanding to other countries, too
Before the American version of The Circle hit Netflix, the British version aired for two seasons on the UK’s Channel 4, from 2018 through 2019.
Following the series’ success, Netflix debuted The Circle: Brazil in March 2020 and The Circle: France in April 2020.
Although the contestants are from the US, the series is filmed in the UK – and all versions of The Circle are filmed in the same place
Despite the establishing shots, the decor of the apartments, and the food featured on the show all seeming very American, the series is actually filmed in Northern England.
Creator Tim Harcourt told Vulture in January 2020 that all of that is intentional since the show is created to reflect the home country of the cast members for each version of the series.
“We filmed all four versions of the show in the same block of flats in a town called Salford in Manchester in the United Kingdom. And for each version – the Brazilian, the American, the French, the British version – we had to sort of design personal touches that made it feel like home for everyone who was living in there.”
Some of the show’s establishing shots are of American cities, though
