Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Circle France’ On Netflix, A Continental Version Of Everyone’s Favorite Social Distancing Reality Show

It’s only been 3 months since the American version of The Circle premiered on Netflix, but it feels like we’re already getting cynical about the format. We know the archetypes, and we know that the apartment building where the shows are shot is nowhere near the countries that the casts represent. We also appreciate when the contestants selected force producers to shake up the format a bit. Does the new French version of the show, shot after the two British seasons, the American season and the Brazilian season, manage to do anything new?

THE CIRCLE FRANCE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The skyline of what looks like Paris, then the shot of the same apartment building in England where the other versions of The Circle have been shot. This time, there is no host; we see a shot of The Circle on a screen and a male announcer says, “Welcome to The Circle France. Alright subscribers, let me explain.”

The Gist: The French version of everyone’s favorite social distancing reality show is pretty much what you’ve come to expect from The Circle, with one or two twists. You know the drill by now: Nine contestants occupy eight apartments (more on this anomaly in a second), and set up profiles on a voice-activated social media system. Chats are had, lists are made, and the top two finishers become “influencers,” who determine which of the other contestants are “blocked” and sent home. That person is replaced by someone else and the contest continues. Some contestants present their true selves, some a version of themselves, and others are posing as someone else in order to trick the rest of the contestants.

There are two catfishers in this group. Maxime is doing a more “traditional” form of it, posing as his hot blonde wife Valeria. But the other catfishing situation is unusual: Jo and Monique, 78 and 75 respectively, are rooming together in one apartment, posing as Jo’s 25-year-old grandson Nicolas. While they see like they’re fairly “with it” seniors, they still have trouble seeing the screen or getting with the lingo of the youngs.

The others fall into pretty standard categories: Lou is a natural beauty and a model, and just wants to portray her true self; Romain just wants to show how fun he is; Éléa hates social media and wants to see if she can win without lying; Cédric is a kickboxing champion who is going to portray himself as more of a reserved, shy guy; Gary is the pot-stirrer overflowing with personality; and Ines, who was born in Morocco, thinks she’s a good liar and will portray herself as single, despite being in a relationship.

Our Take: After the success of the British and American versions of The Circle and the bonkers, sexually-fluid cast of the Brazilian version, the French version (original title: The Circle Game) feels amazingly stodgy and claustrophobic by comparison. There’s only two people of color in the cast, only one that’s openly gay or bi, and six out of the eight profiles have the contestants more or less portraying their true selves. Where’s the fun in that?

What’s odd is that the French season is the fourth one that was shot in that apartment building in England (after the two British seasons, the American season and the Brazilian season), but it feels the producers didn’t learn anything from those seasons. The Brazilian season showed that the contestants were free to move around the building while staying isolated, but in the French premiere, all of the contestants stayed in their apartments, of course leading to that weird disconnect of seeing people talk to themselves from what feels like a well-decorated prison cell. The movement in the Brazilian version helped us shake that feeling, but that wasn’t evident at all in this version.

But what struck us is just how boring these contestants are… except for Jo and Monique. Their inclusion on the show was a stroke of genius. It’s genius because, not only are they seniors trying to win a millennials’ game, but they’re living together for the first time and getting into tiffs due to their opposite personalities. They fight over green beans and lament that the pasta they’re making will be ruined because The Circle sends an alert. They seem to be clued-in enough to use emojis and not get too flummoxed about what they’re seeing on screen (if they can see it), but they admit they still don’t know online lingo. And in the initial chat, they have Nicolas come on so hard to Valeria (ironically, the other catfish), the rest of the contestants sniff it out immediately. The longer they stay in the game, the better.

Other than that, though, it feels that mostly everyone else is playing it too safe, and as we’ve seen in this game, safe isn’t very interesting.

Sex and Skin: Surprisingly very little, given France’s liberal reputation.

Parting Shot: The cliffhanger for episode 1 is in a very odd place, where we find out the bottom five spaces on the initial rankings, but go to the credits before the top three are revealed. Episode 2 is likely going to be spent on the first block, with a session of “Agree or Disagree” helping the influencers decide who goes. That feels incredibly drawn out to us. And from what we’ve seen, the person who does end up getting blocked is entirely predictable.

Sleeper Star: Cédric is a pretty arrogant dude, so we’re somewhat intrigued with how long he’s going to be able to play humble and reserved before telling people he’s a kickboxing champ.

Most Pilot-y Line: It seemed that the producers were leaning hard on Maxime getting in touch with his feminine side, donning a frilly robe, putting on a skincare face mask, and yelling his responses while taking a bath. Hey, he’s allowed to do whatever he wants, but it felt like the producers were having a bit too much fun with it, know what we mean?

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s still The Circle, and the social distancing aspect of the series is more relatable than ever. But we were disappointed that the French version has a group of (mostly) generic, interchangeable contestants.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream The Circle France On Netflix