Surprise The third season (opens in new tab) of the viral hit "The Circle" (opens in new tab) dropped on Netflix on September 8, 2021, just a few months after the second season (opens in new tab) was released. The reality competition first hit screens on New Year's Day 2020, when the idea of being confined to an apartment and communicating only through social media was a unique premise rather than a socially distant reality. In "The Circle," rotating players competed to become the most popular person on the voice-activated social media platform by showing their true selves and fishing cats with fake photos and personalities. At the end of season one, two prizes were awarded: $100,000 to the player most highly rated by the contestants and $10,000 to the fan favorite chosen by the viewers.

Fans of the show will quickly become familiar with the luxury apartments in which "The Circle" is filmed. In addition to the time each contestant spends in his or her customized apartment, the show repeatedly films the exterior of the red brick building (and the giant LED-lit circle).

Viewers will be able to determine where the apartment is located primarily from weather and exterior photos. The program uses shots of Chicago and Milwaukee cityscapes, but it turns out that the building is not actually in any American city. Or, for that matter, anywhere in the United States.

Instead, the Circle building is in Salford, a town near Manchester, England; according to The Cinemaholic (opens in new tab), it is 15 minutes from Manchester City Center, near the River Irwell.

The Adelphi Wharf Phase I building has a total of 65 units, and the program maintains 12 units for contestants, decorated, soundproofed, and equipped with cameras for filming. The show also slightly redecorates the apartments for each new contestant. The Circle creator Tim Harcourt told the Chicago Tribune (opens in new tab) that a gym, yoga room, and Jacuzzi space will also be built in the studio, and contestants will never leave the building.

Also, although the show was only filmed for a few weeks, season one contestant Bill Cranley told the Chicago Tribune that he and the contestants spent nearly a month in the UK. He said, "They wanted us to get acclimated to our new surroundings, get over the jet lag, and feel at home."

People like me will wonder why The Circle flew the athletes and standby contestants (numbering as many as 50) to the UK for the shoot. Actually, it's because The Circle started as a show in the UK and then expanded to include American, French, and Brazilian versions. (The French and Brazilian series are available on Netflix.) Harcourt told Vulture (opens in new tab) that all of the international versions of The Circle will be filmed in the same Salford apartment, with different versions shot one after the other. The show will also have each apartment furnished and ready to go for each season.

As for the shots of U.S. cities, Harcourt told Vulture magazine that he tried to make the show feel familiar to American viewers. He said, "In the U.S. version, we wanted the buildings to feel like they were everywhere, not in a specific location. But adding shots of the U.K. and its cities didn't make sense and was rather confusing, so we added U.S. cityscapes to give the majority of the audience, who assumed it was somewhere in the U.S., a sense of Americanness." They also used the same tactic in other countries, swapping footage of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in the Brazilian version. It seems that the producers and the catfishing contestants had similar ideas.

I'm sure they did. Thanks to Chloe Veitch's interview with Refinery29, we get an unreserved perspective on what it's like to live in the Circle Building. For example, how to use the restroom." "I just warn the producer. Like, 'Oh, I'm going to go to the bathroom. Or, 'I'm going to take a quick shower,'" Chloe explained to Refinery29.

As for the food, "I had a shopping list of things I wanted. I would tell the producers and they would go out and get all the groceries for me, and they would leave the food outside the door for me because of COVID and quarantine. But I couldn't cook. So I didn't know what to ask for. I didn't know how to shop. I didn't know how the ingredients worked. If I started asking for pesto, there was no end to it. I had to ask the producer," Chloe said.

And will contestants be able to go out on the balcony? To be honest, I don't think so. But we filmed in England, so it's going to be freezing. Chloe said.