Pop stars go undercover as ‘catfish’ on Netflix social media reality show
The following contains spoilers from the first four episodes of The Circle Season 4.
“I’m actually a bit scared now – my heart’s beating really fast,” Mel B tells Emma Bunton on entering
The Circle.
That’s right, two of the Spice Girls are on the fourth season of
The Circle, Netflix’s social experiment/reality competition in which contestants build online personas for bonding and back-stabbing each other without meeting face to face.
“They were absolutely brilliant, and we loved having them,” executive producer Toni Ireland says. “I’m thrilled that we’ve kept it secret for so long.”
The pop stars are on the socialmedia-based series because of, well, social media: Bunton once noted on Instagram how much she enjoys the show. Thankfully, Mel B was also a fan, and the two alumnae of the 1990s girl group were game to go in together and play as a single persona.
“It’s the perfect show for a celebrity to play with complete anonymity,” says Ireland, noting that the British edition recently included English broadcaster Richard Madeley and launched a one-off with a celebrity cast to raise money for charity.
Instead of having them compete to win like the rest of the contestants, Bunton and Mel B went into The Circle for a four-day period with a specific mission: if they could remain in the game as an undetected “catfish”, the prize money would be an extra US$50,000.
“We’re always looking for ways to elevate the format, to make it bigger and better for the viewers … so we came up with this fun twist,” Ireland says of the fourth season, filmed in autumn 2021 in Salford, England. “Also, watching the dynamic of two people playing the game together is interesting because they might not always agree.
“From the moment they found out about what they had to do, you can see it: they were just all in,” she adds.
The pair’s persona is “Jared”, a 28-year old male who works as a children’s author.
“We need to think of what our books are called, and how many books have we written,” Bunton stresses in the second episode.
“I feel pretty nervous about making sure we know everything about Jared. We gotta write it all down, we just gotta be clever about it.”
“Jared” immediately starts forming friendships with some contestants, and even starts flirting with another.
Between strategic chats and fun challenges, viewers get to see the two Spice Girls in a relatively normal setting: stewing berries in their pyjamas, tidying up the kitchen, playing card games and lounging alongside Mel B’s dog, Cookie.
“They really are living together while they’re in there,” says Ireland. “They weren’t treated any differently than the other players. They’re clearly brilliant friends.”
Bunton and Mel B are put in the hot seat beginning with the third episode, when all the players are gifted ’90s memorabilia, sing along to Spice Girls songs and share memories of the girl group.
They then announce virtually to the other players that they’re playing the game, and everyone must guess which profile they’re secretly behind. (Bunton and Mel B try to fool the others by saying “Jared” isn’t a Spice Girls fan, yet is still excited at the prospect of playing alongside his sister’s favourite musicians.)
A round of Spice Girls trivia, questioning players on the group’s films and Olympics ceremony performance, only makes the game murkier.
Without knowing the consequences of the twist, the players then vote on who they each think is the Spice Girls’ persona; most of them have to be fooled for Emma and Mel B to complete their mission.
The season finale, hosted by Michelle Buteau, will be released on May 25.
After that, The Circle is open to more celebrities in the future, Ireland says.
“If anyone is interested in playing the game and thinks they’ve got what it takes, then they can absolutely reach out to us,” she says. “Though, the Spice Girls are icons – where can we even go from there?”