Alert, The Circle season 6 is on the way! Here's when new episodes drop

Alert! An all-new season of The Circle is coming to Netflix. The hit reality series is part competition show and part social media experiment, where players can only interact with one another from The Circle's own social media platform. After choosing a profile picture and writing a short bio -- real or fake -- players get to join group chats, direct message, and participate in challenges to try and learn as much as they can about each other.

The goal? To be voted as the favorite player within the group and win the coveted $100,000 cash prize. When the series first premiered, it quickly became one of my favorite reality competition shows. The format of the show makes it easy to find characters you're excited to root for, and I love seeing the different relationships develop all while watching the Catfish players scheme.

Watching The Circle is like snooping over-the-shoulder of everyone who is part of a drama-filled, tea-spilling group chat -- and half of the members are actually secretly playing as catfish. I always finish the series within the first day or two of new episodes coming out. But thankfully, Netflix has stopped me from being able to get too too far ahead thanks to their staggered schedule for dropping batches of episodes for The Circle season 6.

Wednesdays will be your new favorite day if you're a fan of The Circle. Starting April 17, new episodes will roll out in four separate weekly batches. There are 13 total hour-long episodes, with four new episodes dropping each week consecutively. The season finale will then drop on Wednesday, May 8. Here's a breakdown of the release schedule:

The Circle season 6 release schedule on Netflix

• Wednesday, April 17: Episodes 1-4
• Wednesday, April 24: Episodes 5-8
• Wednesday, May 1: Episodes 9-12
• Wednesday, May 8: Finale Episode

Though we don't have too much information about what to expect on The Circle season 6, fans will notice two major changes. First, the show's apartments have relocated to Atlanta, Georgia. The first five seasons of the show were filmed in Northern England, but this will be the first season where filming takes place in the US.

But what's even more interesting is that the series' look into how we value social media profiles is going to be further complicated by the introduction of an all AI player. Netflix has teased that "For the first time ever, an AI bot is entering the game as the ultimate catfish. Will the metal menace outsmart us all? Or will the human players use their intelligence to suss out anything artificial?"

The Circle season 6 premieres with the first four episodes on Wednesday, April 17.