The Circle - who’s watching?

[Standrewsschool]

The first three are wannabes.

Hunter - trying to revive his career.

Also why aren''t there any older participants apart from pretend ones.

Think about who the show is aimed at ...

I actually like the new 'cloning' twist - it is at least true to (virtual) life. The only problem is that, as pp have said, these contestants seem to lack anything resembling a personality. And they're completely uninterested in each other. Completely. There's no emotional investment at all. (So unlike the first two UK series, which were magnificent.) I'd be feeling it a lot more if one of those earlier contestants had been cloned.

But I guess there's still time. Let's hope any new entrants will inject some character into the show.

Checking in. Love Hashu and Andy!

I agree the twist was really mean to Tally, it would have felt unfair if she had been blocked and, depending on if they reveal that Orange Tally was actually Yolanda, could leave doubt for a lot of players around Real Tally now. I’m glad it’s over now anyway and hopefully there won’t be too many more major twists.

I don't see how it wasn't obvious to everyone that Fake Tally must be the recently blocked Yolanda! I mean ...

But they're all in there facing the possibility of being blocked by an influencer - it would be no different for OG Tally if she had been blocked by the group. I'm sure Channel 4 doesn't swear an oath to contestants that 'every season will be exactly like the last and there will be no surprises'.

I mean Emma talking to them in person in what looks like a diary room chair the twists etc, they've jazzed the programme up a lot and a lot of interference

Why did I press quote and it not show the message. It was in relation to the big brotherisation comment

I don't see how it wasn't obvious to everyone that Fake Tally must be the recently blocked Yolanda! I mean ...

Agreed! Also, why did not of them ask Yolanda a really simple question such as "tell me what we talked about in our private conversation," - if there had been a private conversation then the response would have revealed she was fake, and if there actually hadn't been a private conversation, Yolanda would be instantly found out by her response. In fact there were tons of ways in which she could have been caught out - why wasn't she?

I imagine any chat that might interfere with the flow of the producers' narrative would have been edited out?

Because, however vapid some of them might seem, I'm sure they do have more in-depth conversations than we're allowed to witness. It's not as if they have anything else to do but talk to the other residents.

Can you assume that channel 4 would not allow a white person to say they wanted to be the first Asian/ Black winner or to say they are disabled if they aren't? Does that mean catfish are more likely to be white and not disabled? Syed is a catfish but I suspect a white bloke playing Sayed as he is being played would have been accused of racial stereotyping by viewers by now.
Either everything should be able to be lied about or everyone should have to basically be themselves, just a nicer/ more manipulative version

I think it might be allowed but I think he'd straight away be torn apart by the audience and media before he even attempted to do the accent

I don't see how it wasn't obvious to everyone that Fake Tally must be the recently blocked Yolanda! I mean .

Tbf Vithun did say this.

He did! And then he seemed to forget he'd said it and appeared as flummoxed as everyone else.

I suspect Channel 4 sent in the heavies to 'ave a word with him ...

Agree, it's unlikely he would have forgotten that. I think he was right in not caring who was the catfish and voting for the person most likely to be on his side though. Also I don't think Yolanda when she first went off visited anyone which was odd. If real Tally had been voted off surely catfish Tally would have been next. Maybe they shouldn't reveal who they really are

The conversations are so short and strange I presume they are only allowed to post 3 times or something, otherwise why cut short a chat and just sign off

I'm watching and despite my reservations, I'm drawn in already. I'm aggravated by all the new things and how they have fancied it up but still totally hooked.

I never watched the celebrity one but have watched the first two seasons and the American version which I loved.

@2Rebecca when Yolanda left for the first time, she was shown into an empty flat, having been directed there under the impression it was occupied (she had planned to visit Syed/Hashu) and she saw Emma on the tv in there, telling her to go back to her own flat and choose a cloning victim!

Wrt the others mostly not thinking the clone could be Yolanda, they saw her goodbye message and although the circle has many twists (people have stayed on before), I think it lulls you into closure, so you do think "right, next"! Even knowing that the circle plays tricks, they have a lot to keep track of and she committed to being someone else and wasn't being herself to begin with either, so she possibly was quite easily forgotten beneath Tally. People who stay on usually commit to another identity so even if they don't ring true in their disguise, you wouldn't necessarily guess exactly who they really were with a whole world to choose from. Players seem to focus on what's in front of them and on broad clues - that doesn't sound like a man so it must be a woman being deliberately laddy, that sounds too much like a woman so it's likely a bloke trying too hard, that nurse knows nothing about first aid so whoever that is they're probably lying and not a HCP, how can that 68 year old not know who Maggie Thatcher is, they're probably a young'un etc- rather than hunt for a specific person.

Wrt the building if the "circle" on the front is accurate with the balconies within it all lit up, I always thought thats where they were. So it would be 9 apartments + hangout space over 4/5 floors and they're neighbours but with possibly stairwell breaks between next door neighbours so they're not back to back and good sound proofing! My best friend used to live midway up a huge block in Elephant and Castle and she never had any complaints about massive, loud after parties coming back at 1am going through til 5! I wonder how easy it will be for them to reuse flats this year with quarantine though. I'm guessing starting contestants/later incomers have all been bubbled etc but are cleaning regs stricter? They have reused flats before, I think.

Two new catfish going in.
Natalya a military policewoman playing a paratrooper.
And Musical theatre actor Scott Paige playing his nan.

I've seen Scott in a couple of shows.

Hope they add some interesting conversations.

I feel like playing an 80-year-old woman when you’re a msn in your 20s is a huge risk, how likely is he to stay authentic? Feel like he’s probably do better as himself.

Not sure about Natalya, she might be right that it’ll be easier to pass herself off as a make soldier than a female one in terms of believability but guess we will see - the players coming in later always struggle more to settle in anyway.

Natalya is stunning. Think it would have been far more interesting if she'd gone in as herself, even if she's right that it would have been harder.

Shut up with your Geezer girl shit, please.

I’m watching now for the first time... haven’t got a clue what it’s all about 🤣🤣🤣

@bonfireheart Manrika is probably the most famous of them all - she’s got circa 320k followers on TikTok, I believe.

This series feels a bit strained already. I’m not sure if it’s the change in format to make it more Covid friendly; or the twists, which have made it a bit more Big Brother?

The chats seem short and stunted, and I just don’t love any of the people.

They're all awful. Surprised Vishran got past the show psychologist, he seems too vulnerable for reality TV. Andy is my favourite but wish he hadn't done the me and my ailment thing to get sympathy. Amazed they don't see through Dot and Syed. The contestants don't seem to realise old ladies who can't do technology and sitcom stereotype Asian old men with Goodness Gracious me English are unlikely to jump through the hoops to get on a reality show

I’ve enjoyed tonight’s episode a lot more, I’m liking the two new players and I’m glad all the Tally stuff is over. Think I also appreciated a break from all the drama of a blocking tonight!

@TakeYourFinalPosition, what are the format changes to make it more covid secure? I have watched the first 2 series & the US version but obviously was some time ago now so haven’t really noticed any obvious changes, the players are still able to meet each other and use communal areas so I assume they were all in isolation and tested before the show. I’m liking that there’s no live element to the show although not sure how that will work for the final, although they managed it fit the celebrity version which was filmed at similar time.

The clone twist was a bit dramatic but then there were odd twists in the second series too such as having Richard Madely enter the circle and then get to pick an influencer etc.

I do think a big difference between this series and the first one is the mindset of the players; in the first series the players were working on building relationships and getting to know each other and it didn’t feel like they were overly focused on finding the catfish but ‘catching a catfish’ seems to be far higher in the list of priorities for the contestants this year, even the players who are themselves catfish (Eg: Gemma/ James) keep referring to needing to try and take out the catfish. I think that’s changing the nature of the conversations as they’re trying to fish for information they can use to catch each other out more than they’re trying to make friends and I think they’re also far more aware about the need to make alliances and be tactical with their voting etc.

I do also suspect that a lot of the conversations are cleverly edited so that we’re only seeing small snippets of much longer conversations as often the players seem to sign off a chat after just a handful of messages but still come away feeling like they’ve formed some sort of close connection and some of the leaps from saying hello to opening up and crying to saying goodbye seem very extreme if that’s literally the whole conversation!

Is the Circle actually happening now or has it been pre-recorded a while back? Vithun’s Twitter is posting in the first person and it all seems very realistic... I’m confused!