The reviewer expresses intense disappointment and frustration towards Netflix's show 'The Circle', describing it as a soul-crushing, fundamentally depressing experience that lacks dignity and meaningful content.
The show isolates contestants in separate apartments, forcing them to communicate solely through a social media app, resulting in shallow interactions, excessive focus on selfies, and inauthentic relationships.
Contestants are portrayed as walking brand partnerships overly concerned about Instagram-like validation, leading to fake personas, superficial debates over emojis, and a severe lack of depth or intelligence among the cast.
The reviewer's personal journey watching 'The Circle' transitions from open-mindedness to hate-watching, questioning of life choices, and genuine concern for humanity due to the show's trivial and uninteresting content.
The format of the show lacks substance, revolving around mundane activities like selfie posting, reacting to posts, and creating unnecessary drama through misinterpretations and alliances, failing to engage viewers or create meaningful stakes.
The show's existence is questioned, highlighting the insensitivity of gamifying negative aspects of social media during a mental health crisis, and criticizing its global versions for maintaining the same uninteresting format.
The review condemns 'The Circle' for being aggressively mediocre, emphasizing its lack of innovation, quality, and authentic human connection, reflecting broader issues in modern entertainment where engagement outweighs storytelling quality.
The decline of television programming is discussed, attributing it to the audience's acceptance of mindless content, algorithmic influences, and the normalization of subpar entertainment, calling for a demand for better quality content.
The reviewer questions potential solutions to the entertainment crisis, urging audiences to support higher quality content, reject mediocrity, and demand actual substance in programming to save television from its current state of decline.
Despite Netflix's renewal of 'The Circle' due to viewership, the review concludes by criticizing the show's lack of authentic human interaction, portraying it as a hollow simulation that symbolizes society's hunger for connection.