The Mole
Why The Best Game Of The Early 2000s Didn’t Last
Do you consider yourself a human lie detector? Does your bullshit meter always lead you in the right direction? Can you sus out even the most well disguised imposters? Or…are you a master of deceit? Do you have a face people can’t help but believe? Would you screw over your team if it meant you could get ahead? No matter which description you identify with more, The Mole is the perfect game for you!
Not familiar with The Mole? Yeah, most people weren’t. But fingers crossed that changes now that Netflix has started streaming the first two seasons of ABC’s 2001 reality game series where deception, deceit, and sabotage is the name of the game. Based off of a Belgian show of the same name (which still airs to this day) the show works like this: a group of Americans travel abroad for six weeks where they spend just about every single moment together playing games to help them earn money for the pot. At the end of the game one player will win the pot and the entirety of the money collected by the group through out the game. But there’s a catch, because isn’t there always. Amongst the group is a plant. A saboteur. A mole. Someone production hired to keep the players from banking as much money as possible but no one knows which player it is. At the end of each episode, the players take a 10 question quiz of varying detail pertaining to the identity of the mole and the person with the least correct answers or, in the case of a tie, the slowest person, is EXECUTED…which is just a really intense way to say they’ve been eliminated from the game.
Sounds like fun, right? I know! The Mole combined the basic concept of any reality competition series with the added excitement of knowing that someone is purposely trying to fuck it up for everyone else. It’s a mystery and ya girl loves a mystery.
When The Mole first aired in 2001, I was just shy of 12 and already obsessed with Survivor and only a few months away from diving into everyone’s favorite around the world competition, the Amazing Race. Big Brother was also on the radar but I didn’t get super involved in that until high school….man, CBS really out here killing the reality competition game. But the big question I have is, in a time when so many quality competition series debuted, why was The Mole the only one that didn’t last?
As of this writing Survivor is 40 seasons in, the Amazing Race has 32, and Big Brother just started their 23rd season this week, but The Mole only got five seasons, two of which were celebrity editions and a fifth that I genuinely have zero memory of existing. Why? The Mole had all the same things going for it as the others…interesting concept, boat load of money, and a sassy yet lovable host in everyone’s favorite silver fox, Anderson Cooper! It seemed like everything was going in The Mole’s favor.
But, by the second season they had been ousted to the dreaded Friday night death slot and experienced low ratings in the aftermath of 9/11 causing it to go on hiatus three weeks after the premiere. It aired in full the following summer opposite the first season of American Idol and had good enough ratings to secure the two celebrity seasons that followed in 2003 and 2004 (hosted by Ahmad Rashad constantly swirling in cigar smoke.) After a four year break, ABC brought The Mole back for one final, average person, season that to my knowledge had next to no marketing cause there’s no way I would have passed up watching a new season at the time. It was cancelled shortly after.
Now, I’ve been doing a lot of research on this topic because I truly don’t know what caused The Mole’s downfall when all of its reality competition peers (Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother, American Idol) have managed to go strong for over 20 years. But it seems no one can really answer that question! I can’t find ratings from the time or any quotes from network executives on what the cause was for writing The Mole off the way they did. Perhaps its cancellation is The Mole’s biggest mystery of all. The one thing that is certain is The Mole still has die hard fans out there always hoping for a revival and it looks like Netflix just might be giving them their wish.
On May 3rd, the game show gossip blog, BuzzerBlog, revealed that Netflix had ordered a new show called the Insider whose casting notices sound suspiciously Mole-like with weekly quizzes, working as a team to fill the pot, and an INSIDER hired to sabotage the teams attempt to bank big bucks. Goddammit…call it what you want but this is The Mole! Currently filming in Australia, the Insider will likely show up on Netflix early 2022 which makes perfect sense for why the streaming platform suddenly decided to start airing the first two seasons of The Mole. They’ve got to garner interest, get people hyped and familiar with the way the game works. And their plan seems to have worked, my friend Tara, a fellow reality game junkie, got sucked into the first season of The Mole the first weekend after it dropped and she had never heard of it before. I’ve been getting updates on the reg as she works her way through the season talking about the strategy involved and how intense the games are. Yes Tara, join me in The Mole hole (lololol made my own damn self laugh.)
So why do I think ABC cancelled The Mole in the first place? If I had to guess, I’d blame it on budget. Moving a dozen or so players and over a hundred crew members to multiple countries, having them stay in nice hotels while eating fancy meals must have cost hella money even in 2001. While I don’t know if ratings played a part, I personally hope not. I think audiences are smart enough to enjoy The Mole and the deceptive aspect of the game. The Mole was the ultimate water cooler game show where people could compare notes each week. It gave us all a chance to be detectives weekly but from the comfort of our own couch.
Before Netflix did the world a service by bringing The Mole to streamers everywhere, the only way to watch it was by finding bootleg videos on Youtube (which is exactly how I made Jonathan watch it early in our relationship.) Thank god new viewers will have the chance to see it in better quality so The Mole fans can beef up their ranks before The Insider premieres in a few months.
Who remembers the Mole? Have you watched it since it came to Netflix last month? How do you think you’d be able to do as the Mole? Do you think you could figure out who the Mole is? Let me know all your hot takes on The Mole in the comments below!