The Circle - who’s watching?

[Standrewsschool]

The first three are wannabes.

Hunter - trying to revive his career.

Those are Andy's kids.
Natalya is friends with the man whose pics she is using.

@SpanishFly

Yep, we know nothing about them. Even getting them to change their profile pictures would be interesting. I missed Felix and Andys intros, and I literally have no idea if the kids in Andy's photo are his, as they are never ever mentioned by anyone. Why not?! And Felix - are the photos someone that Natalya knows, or just some random?

I miss the status updates and the regular profile picture updates. I think they added a lot in terms of getting to know the different people and starting conversations and relationships.

I totally agree that we’re not really ‘getting to know’ the players. It’s like they’re throwing in more and more new players to create tension and conflict rather than letting the audience know more about and root for certain players as they get more familiar with them.

I actually think that there is a chance Manrika won’t win. You’re better off to be behind the most popular player when it gets to the final as it normally comes down to tactical voting. If someone is perceived as being very popular they will get rated lower. Much more likely for Syed/Andy/dot to sneak away with the win. Fingers crossed anyway! Manrika is a very unpleasant person

Yeah, we know virtually nothing about any of them, and that’s a real shame.

I agree with a previous poster in that I miss the newsfeed updates about current affairs topics that the players were encouraged to have a discussion about - it showed much more of a person's personality (even if they were catfishing because it was still their own opinion they were projecting). I get how that is difficult to do this year with the show being filmed 6 months in advance (and the fact the only news back in Sept was covid, covid and the school return!) but it's an aspect of the show that is missed.

The same with winning the opportunity to update your profile pic which provided much more interesting/real conversations - why has this element of the show gone. There seem to be no opportunities this season for the players to ask questions of each other and get under the surface of the profile picture other than the games/twists engineered by the producers to provide a certain outcome.

There is also too much focus this year on outing catfish. Who cares! Syed/Hashu has shown brilliantly that it doesn't matter who you portray yourself to be, your personality will still come through in your responses and it's whether the others get on with that personality. There will be no point to anyone going into the circle as a catfish soon if the sole purpose is to oust them first regardless of how nice a person they come across as being.

Unfortunately the producers are doing with the circle what they did with BB and it is becoming less and less a narrative on social interactions and more about heavily engineered nastiness/gameplaying. I really hope they rethink this next year!

Yes to all of this. I keep thinking - surely they’ve changed pictures - what happened to that. And no I’m depth convos at all - thinking back to the extraordinary Tim and his reflections etc. Where on earth has all of that gone and why. Eg Antalya - really interesting job and speaks Russian and we know literally nothing about all of that - or I guess Felix’s’ equivalents. Know absolutely nothing at all about the new woman (forgotten her name even) other than she seems gullible. We used to have a much better feel for character. Syed is the only one who I feel I know a bit (and love).

Badly want producers to see this thread as it is a great concept and has been a great show.

Contact Channel 4!

I think it's probably deliberate to bring in two new players really close to the final. It gives the long standing contestants an opportunity to boot them out and get to the final. It seems to be what they've done every other series. Harry got through to the final 5 in series 1 and he'd only been there a few days. He then got booted out so 4 OGs made the final.

Loved in the previous season watching Tim and Woody's chats and their mutual appreciation for things despite the age gap, how Woody bonded with Ella over their love of festivals, the back story to Sammi/James's made up child but this season I know absolutely nothing about any them other than who they think to be a catfish or a game player.

Daily Drop is here, no mention of the new players so I’m wondering if they won’t be introduced until tomorrow. It doesn’t give too much away really but just after a clip around the ratings shows Emma Willis going in and saying the rules are changing for one day only; it doesn’t say what that rule change is but my guess is that the bottom player or bottom 2 players are going to become the influencers instead of the top player(s). I’m thinking Andy is likely to be at or near the bottom so if that is the rule change think he will probably be an influencer along with maybe Femi or Pippa.

That would be amusing. Andy at the bottom, influencer again, then boots out Manrika! 👍🏻😂

With two 'new' players coming in so late, will it not more likely be two old players? Perhaps re entering as someone else (like Beth and the other lad last year who went back in as Joyce) I'm hoping this would be quite a good twist, and may turn things around a bit.

Praying hands emoji... Send!

The sneak peak on Circle Spy’s Twitter feed shows a new player & profile so unless the photo has somehow been faked I don’t think it will be a returning player: twitter.com/circlespy/status/1378466448763457536?s=21

Returning players have also usually gone straight back into the game after being blocked so I think if one of the blocked players was coming back we would know, unless of course it is whoever gets blocked next.

ALERT “Time for ratings” (shouted at deafening level).

YouTediousShit at No One, for that thought alone, Circle. Lock in my rating.

Haha!
Ahh looks like my prediction may have been off, but I'm still hopeful 🤞

Tim just did an Instagram live video. Basically agrees with all of us. Production interfering and the programme has "gone to the dark side". Also the rules aren't clear or fair.

Would love for the two newbies to be Tally and Billy in catfish mode! Putting a pretty female in would have been better though to watch manrika sharpen her claws.

Pippa is pretty too
Was Manrika sharpening her claws? I’ve not seen it for couple days

Is it on tonight?

I always wanted someone to go in as the real Hunter, just to fuck with his head. Would have worked better than the orange / blue Tally. Vithun and Billy as a pretty girl could work. Shame they never stuck a celeb in cat fishing like Richard Madeley last year. He was funny, transparently clueless, but also quite genuine.
I'd put money on the producers being quite young. They clearly want it to go the way of BB, thinking that's what the public want. Even though producer meddling eventually spelled the end of BB. Like a lot of you have said already, this is not the year that anyone wants to see nastiness. Very short sighted of them.

@Rummikub

Is it on tonight?

Yes it is.

I want Syed to win but if everyone else recognises he is popular then they will vote him low and he won't win. That's one of the flaws in this programmer's format isn't it? I wish it was a completely public vote for the final week.

A public vote would go against the purpose of the game. It's all about how you represent yourself to each other through the platform. The whole point is that they don't see what's happening behind the profile like we do. Moving to a public vote means that the nature of the game would have to change entirely with the "behind the scenes" bits mattering more than the circle itself. Having a viewer prize is definitely good though.

The thing is, people don't realise the way to play to win. Due to the voting structure, you don't want to always be the most popular player. Playing with that as the aim will help you stay to the final but won't help you win. You want to be popular but ultimately 3rd/4th in the group for most of the game. That's the target spot for winning at the end but it's a riskier game as it means you might get blocked before getting there.

@Iamnotthe1

A public vote would go against the purpose of the game. It's all about how you represent yourself to each other through the platform. The whole point is that they don't see what's happening behind the profile like we do. Moving to a public vote means that the nature of the game would have to change entirely with the "behind the scenes" bits mattering more than the circle itself. Having a viewer prize is definitely good though.

The thing is, people don't realise the way to play to win. Due to the voting structure, you don't want to always be the most popular player. Playing with that as the aim will help you stay to the final but won't help you win. You want to be popular but ultimately 3rd/4th in the group for most of the game. That's the target spot for winning at the end but it's a riskier game as it means you might get blocked before getting there.

I see what you mean. I'm just looking at it as wanting the nicest player to win, but I get what you are saying about how a viewer vote would change the whole idea of the show.