The Mole (TV series)

A spy-themed Reality Show that first aired in Belgium (on VRT) in 1999, hosted by Michiel Devlieger, and premiered on ABC in 2001. Nicknamed "the smartest reality show ever," it's considered to its fans as unique for its emphasis on brain rather than brawn, beauty, or sociability, as well as its audience interaction through hidden clues to The Mole's identity. The premise was simple: the contestants worked together to complete various tasks to earn a cash prize--usually up to $1,000,000--that only one of them would win. One of the contestants, however, was The Mole, a double agent hired by the producers themselves to sabotage the group's missions and keep money from the pot. (That's where the spy drama part got fridgy. It's like the CIA hired a spy to take out its own agents. Let that sink in for a moment...okay.) The winner was the player who survived all elimination rounds and figured out who The Mole was.

The American version of the show lasted five seasons and had three hosts, the first and probably most popular one being CNN reporter Anderson Cooper. It has quite a dedicated fan base that made two attempts to revive it: one by sending "lemon heads" (a season five reference) to ABC, much like what was done with the CBS show Jericho, and also by posting "Save The Mole" videos on YouTube to help advertise the show. Some former contestants and season five host Jon Kelley also got involved; a compilation of their videos can be found here.

Tropes used in The Mole (TV series) include:

Adventure Towns: The players are always on the move, traveling from town to town (and occasionally country to country) to complete their various tasks.
Adult Child: During The Mole 2's Three Questions Game, Dorothy describes herself as one of these in relation to the question of who would be a worse babysitter (between her and Heather) to Bill's kids.
Asian and Nerdy: Dorothy.
The Cameo: The Mole from the first season makes a brief appearance towards the end of the second season.
Carried by the Host: The Anderson Cooper seasons are by far more beloved by the fanbase than the Ahmad Rashad/Jon Kelley seasons, and a large part of that has to do with Cooper.
Celebrity Edition: Has had two, both hosted by Ahmad Rashad.
- The Dutch version became this with every season after the fourth one casting Dutch celebrities only. Strangely, unlike with the US celebrity seasons which all but killed the show, the Dutch celebrity seasons haven't had nearly as much of a negative impact on the show considering that the show has remained popular enough to go on for at least eight celebrity-only seasons.
The Chessmaster: Stephen and Jim from the first season could both be seen as this.
Confession Cam
Death by Genre Savviness: In US season 5, one of Bobby's perceived "gives" to the Mole's identity was the fact that host Jon Kelley had earlier greeted the players while eating an apple: Bobby interpreted this as signifying "The Big Apple", thus pointing toward Yonkers resident Paul. In fact, Paul was not the Mole, and Bobby paid for his error by getting executed in fairly short order. The punchline, though, is that the host's eating an apple was used as a clue back in season 2: it indicated true Mole Bill, a resident of Washington, whose state fruit is the apple. Bobby, a professed fanatic of the show, might very well have remembered that old clue and thought it was being recycled here, to his downfall. (However, the apple-eating incident wasn't mentioned in the season finale, leaving it unclear whether that was a mere coincidence or a deliberate Red Herring.)
Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo: Ignoring the celebrity seasons, season two is the biggest oddball -- The Mole 2: The Next Betrayal. The other civilian seasons were simply called The Mole, although the fifth season is referred to on TV.com as The Mole 3.0 because of its being the third civilian season.
Eliminated From the Race: At the end of each episode, the contestants take a quiz on The Mole's identity. The player with the lowest score is "executed."
Elimination Houdini: The winners of seasons two and five, Dorothy and Mark, definitely had luck on their sides. In The Next Betrayal, Elavia accepted a $50,000 bribe to leave the game in place of an elimination. This spared Dorothy, who scored the lowest on the quiz that night and would have been executed. Mark failed the quiz three times and only escaped execution by finishing faster than the eliminated players.
Fair Play Whodunit: The series always gave clues as to the identity of The Mole. Some were ridiculously obscure, but some were legitimate hints. For example, Jon Kelley never called Season 5 Mole Craig's name during the execution ceremonies.
Final Exam Finale: The last quiz covered The Mole's activity from the entire season.
Four Is Death: Four was often used as a secret number in clues because of there being four letters in the word "Mole." For example, season one Mole Kathryn Price was the fourth player to arrive at the starting location in episode one.
Grumpy Old Man: Charlie from Season 1.
Hollywood Atlas: Thankfully, this is mostly averted.
How We Got Here: Many foreign versions of the show open this way, with the host/announcer saying that the finalists just took their final quiz now, but the results won't be known until you, the viewer, have watched the entire season.
Incessant Music Madness: "Tiny Bubbles" in a task near the end of the second season.
Like You Would Really Do It: Invoked by the players when, at the outset, their bags of personal effects were thrown into an incinerator. The players were right, of course-- the bags had been switched for fakes prior to destruction.
- Averted in season five, when the players (sans Craig, who was ill from the last challenge) were instructed to find a volunteer to have his journal destroyed. When Alex reluctantly came forward, it was revealed that the whole exercise was a Secret Test of Character and that his journal would be spared while everyone else's journals would be burned. Mark was not amused.
The Mole: Du h!
Metagame: Due to the elimination quizzes, there are three key elements to being a good Mole contestant.
- Gathering as much information as possible about the players and their activities, whether by copious note-taking or by establishing an alliance with another player to share info (although this information is not always reliable);
- Making the other contestants falsely suspect you by performing sabotage of your own;
- Tracking who's suspicious of whom, so that when a player gets executed, you know the player they were suspecting is less likely to be the Mole.
My Greatest Second Chance: Stephen Baldwin and Corbin Bernsen in Celebrity Mole: Yucatan after having competed in Celebrity Mole: Hawaii. Neither star did much better.
- In fact, they both did worse: each of them went out one round sooner than they had the last time.
Name's the Same: One of the contestants from the first season was named Jim Morrison.
Never Gets Drunk: Hilariously subverted when a challenge involved mashing grapes for wine. Anderson Cooper got plastered with the players.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Contestants screwing up on purpose, to make other contestants think they're the Mole and thus do worse on the elimination quizzes. Yes, it decreased the winner's take, but it increased their chance of being the winner.
Novelization: Bill, The Mole from the second season, wrote a book about his experiences on the show, appropriately titled Reflections Of The Mole. It can be found here.
Obfuscating Stupidity: A tactic sometimes used by contestants, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. Dennis Rodman stands out as an example-- seemed like nobody could figure out if he was stupid, The Mole, or actually really brilliant. Turned out to be brilliant-- he won the game! When they did the journal swap thing, it was discovered that he'd taken no notes, which led some to believe he was The Mole. He actually just had an amazing memory for details.
- Another excellent example is the Mole from Season 3 of the Dutch version who remains the most beloved Mole of that version because they were so good at painting themselves as too lovably goofy to possibly be the Mole.
Off the Rails: In the Season 5 mission "Travelers", Craig was chosen to pick out modes of transportation for the rest of the group to reach a monument within a set amount of time, and was told he would be given an exemption if none of them made it. Going for the exemption, he chose modes of transportation that were... unhelpful, including stilts, scuba gear and a two-person llama costume (Bonus: He assigned the head and rear of the llama costume to arch-rivals Nicole and Paul, respectively.) Rather than participate in the game, the remaining contestants unanimously decided not to play this game right at the start and simply drove to the monument in the vans, forfeiting the money and netting Craig the exemption. This was Craig's most blatant sabotage of the game. Doubles as a CMOA for Craig, as despite single-handedly ruining that mission, not one person suspected him of being The Mole.
Only Known by Their Nickname: "Bribs," a.k.a. Michael Bribiesca. He even wrote it on a piece of tape and stuck it over his real name on his bag.
"Previously On..."
Punny Name: In a late episode of season 2, host Anderson Cooper and the players are all eating McDonald's food as a reward. Anderson states "that all of this is compliments of Mickey D's". Aside from the fact that McDonald's was a sponsor of the show, guess who else involved with the show has that nickname? Hint, they're in the title.
Put on a Bus: The entire show after Season 4. Four years went by before the 2008-09 WGA strike led ABC to revive "The Mole" due to a lack of new material to fill its schedule. The show was finally officially cancelled after Season 5.
Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Besides the mystery of The Mole's identity, the other big part of this show's watchability is the sheer fun it is to watch the contestants try to complete the various tasks.
Reality Show
Reality Show Genre Blindness: Lampshaded by host Anderson Cooper in season two. When the team was instructed to split up into people who wanted to cook and people who didn't want to cook, Anderson later informed them that the people who didn't want to cook would end up having to cook for their challenge, and the team that wanted to cook would be doing something else. He chided them by saying, "This is, like, Basic Mole!"
Red Herring Mole: Produced by Manipulative Editing, lies, or simply following the wrong clues. It's amazing the elaborate theories some fans cooked up, only to have them smashed at the big reveal.
- Granted, part of the Metagame involves being a Red Herring Mole so that everyone erroneously suspects you.
Reunion Show: All five seasons had one. Season one was the only season where The Mole and The Winner were revealed through episode footage shown to the players at the reunion show.
Scenery Porn: Almost all the time, as the players are always moving.
Screwed by the Network: Most fans' opinion of season five, which was poorly advertised and aired in a horrible timeslot.
- Airing The Mole 2 on a Friday night when almost no one was watching, one week after 9/11 happened and the American viewing public were not the in mood for backstabbery.
Secret Test of Character: Every civilian season has had this in one fashion or another. Most famously was the second season, when the team travelling on bus were stopped first by a pair of pretty ladies, then later by an older woman, to fix a flat tire. They fixed both cars, and were rewarded. Had they just fixed the pretty ladies' car, they would've lost money.
Sitcom Arch Nemesis: Season 5's Paul and Nicole were this to each other.
Invisible to Gaydar: Jim from Season 1.
- Bobby from Season 5 as well. The only way you could tell he was gay was when he explicitly mentioned it in an early behind-the-scenes interview, stating that his "Gaydar" senses will help him get a feel of peoples intentions. Otherwise, it isn't telling.
Too Soon: The reason why Season 2 had a lengthy hiatus after its first three episodes aired in early September of 2001. The dreadful ratings didn't help. The whole season was run in its entirety the following summer.
Uncancelled: Season five premiered four years after the previous season.
Unexpectedly Obscure Answer: Celebrity Mole: Hawaii had a very obscure clue involving food storage labels. The labels (if anyone even paid attention to them) said, "Fruits," "Vegetables," "Dairy," "Water," and "Meat." Somehow, you were supposed to know to turn the first letters of each one into an acronym, F.V.D.W.M., which stood for "Frederique Van Der Wal, Mole." Anyone who caught that clue is a genius.
Unreadably Fast Text: A few clues were quickly flashed during the opening sequences.
What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?
What Could Have Been: The third season would have been a standard, "civilian" season (casting for it was even announced) but was later replaced by Celebrity Mole: Hawaii.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Corbin Bernsen and Stephen Baldwin in Yucatan were constantly looking for clues that weren't there.
- Indeed, Corbin actually caught on to one of the clues (seven candles on the dining room table indicating that Journal #7 was held by the Mole), but he was such a scatterbrain that he didn't act on it.
- Darwin from the second season fits this trope big time. While a smart player, he ultimately got all of his coalition partners as well as himself executed for targeting every single person on the quiz EXCEPT The Mole.
Wire Dilemma: Done in the season five challenge "Tick, Tock, Boom!"