S01.E01: Are You The Mole?

[jenrising]

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Twelve crafty competitors gather in Australia's ancient Daintree Rainforest to begin the game, with no idea which of them might be plotting sabotage.

Available on 10/7

[Irlandesa]

I do not like the cell phone "eliminations."  I miss everyone looking at the screen.

And I miss the journals.

There are too many talking to the camera about who the mole is.

[Guest]

I was pleasantly surprised in how much it remained true to the original. The cast is fine but I do miss the variety in age and fitness levels. 

16 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

I do not like the cell phone "eliminations."  I miss everyone looking at the screen.

And I miss the journals.

There are too many talking to the camera about who the mole is.

I agree with everything you said. I also miss the contestants volunteering to get their results. The randomness of original made it much more suspenseful. This time it was obvious some were safe because they were called early. 

[LakeGal]

Glad to have this show back.  I was surprised they never introduced the players.  We didn't get an opening with names by their faces.  

Things I noticed:  Jacob asked the host for keys to the plane. Probably meant nothing,  but I noticed. 

Joi thinks a lot of herself.  She kept bragging about being a pilot and good with maps and everything.  But she got her ground crew completely lost.  Plus none of the team thought to look in the bag.  How stupid.  Osei was holding on to that bag like it was his own personal property full of gold.  

Greg was the curious one on the water crew.  He was so quick to grab the bag from Pranav and open it.  They knew about the clue immediately.  Greg then wandered around doing nothing till he wanted to open the clue and cost them money.  Once they opened the clue Greg immediately drags Casey to the chest in the water.  It was almost like he knew it was there and wanted Casey as his witness he found it.  

Avori was suspicious up in the trees.  She played with the ropes/knots while the others yelled at her to check if there was a hole in the netting.  Not till Kesi went up to help her did they get the crate down.  

I did not like having a "to be continued" at the end.  I like the eliminations to happen to end the episode.  I don't like waiting till the next one.

[Lady Calypso]

Oh, I liked it. The confessionals are a bit much at times, and somewhat repetitive, but I did like this cast's introductions. 

I feel like the Mole would be helpful in this first mission, but not TOO helpful. Stand out a little bit but not too much. They wouldn't want to fail the first mission, or wouldn't want to be the reason for it. So that eliminates people like Will, Joi and Osei for me right off the bat. Those three talked a LOT, were VERY noticeable in the mission and how it played out, and I feel like the Mole wouldn't be so obvious. 

I think Joi was just dumb in the navigation, OR what one of them said that they had the wrong map. If they have the wrong map, the Mole is likely on their Team and swapped it out. Osei's so confident in Joi being the Mole that it makes me certain he's not it either. Will got them their double money and people were starting to suspect him more by the end, and it feels like he wouldn't be the Mole for that reason. Why would he want to stand out right off the bat? People are already noticing his helpfulness. 

I do wonder if they'd show the players throw out the actual Mole's name right away. So people like Avori was mentioned, and she was on my suspect list for a while but I'm leaning away. Again, first episode, you'd want to be conspicuous. However, she's not off my list yet; I still think her, Kesi, Pranav, Greg and Josh are likely to be the Mole for me. All five of those players did something to help, or hurt, their team but not enough for them to be totally suspicious. 

Dom got a LOT of confessionals, so I feel like he's also wiped off my suspect list. As the Mole, you're not going to have 35% of the confessionals just talking about bromances. Also probably why he bugs me.

However, am I good at figuring this stuff out? Not particularly. I'd like to think so, but I vastly overthink to the point where I end up tuning out the clues in general. For all I know, they're going for the obvious and it is someone who was called out this episode.

I would be fine for Osei to go this time. They might have intentionally had him lazer focused on Joi just to express how he's been eliminated. 

I guess we'll see next episode who is eliminated!

[LakeGal]

I really thought it was funny when they showed Osei covering his head with the big leaf.  Was he trying to look like he was the mole and afraid of the sun?  It did make me laugh.  

The editors also left it in that Dom said he was afraid of owls.  A mole would be afraid of owls.  But that is the only thing Dom has ever said or done that looked mole like.  So I do not suspect him.  

[SnarkShark]

I won't say it's perfect compared to the Anderson Cooper version, but it's definitely good enough.  I enjoyed it.  Despite unnecessary tweaking to the pacing, more confessionals, etc.  they did seem to do decent casting, and I'm on board with Alex Wagner.   I think the producers understood why Anderson Cooper was a great host, and Admad Rashad and Jon Kelly worse ones, and that's reflected in her casting here. 

[SnarkShark]

8 hours ago, LakeGal said:

Joi thinks a lot of herself.  She kept bragging about being a pilot and good with maps and everything.  But she got her ground crew completely lost. 

But did she?  Didn't they get turned around when the map got grabbed from her?  Or am I misremembering?  Still sus though because a pilot probably should be able to note where the Sun is and know they got turned around.  Plus... the map probably should have at least been clear the case wasn't near the River.

That said... she feels more like someone who deliberately made themselves look like The Mole as strategy. It was too obvious for a real Mole.

Thor guy also feels too obvious, as does that loudmouth Osei guy.  I guess I'll know between them in a few seconds when the next episode starts.

Edited October 10, 2022 by SnarkShark

[SnarkShark]

On 10/8/2022 at 12:03 AM, Irlandesa said:

I do not like the cell phone "eliminations."  I miss everyone looking at the screen.

It was just a weird "Hey it's 2022, not 2001" thing and ultimately felt inconsequential. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, SnarkShark said:

But did she?  Didn't they get turned around when the map got grabbed from her?  Or am I misremembering?  Still sus though because a pilot probably should be able to note where the Sun is and know they got turned around.  Plus... the map probably should have at least been clear the case wasn't near the River.

I wondered about that. Everyone focused on Joi but there is a point where the others decide they are going in the wrong direction and Osei decides they should go right. When they showed the overview of their path they clearly took a turn away from the correct route. It seems like the others just got impatient. They blamed Joi but everyone else seemed certain the ended up in the right place but were really off in the end. 

[Meedis]

I just finished watching the first episode.    It's too many of them at this point but my gut is telling me Joi is the Mole this time around.   

On 10/9/2022 at 4:01 PM, LakeGal said:

The editors also left it in that Dom said he was afraid of owls.  A mole would be afraid of owls.  But that is the only thing Dom has ever said or done that looked mole like.  So I do not suspect him.  

Hmm maybe that could be a subtle hint that Dom is the Mole.   Maybe he's trying to throw people off his scent by playing the "Bromance" card.

[PurpleTentacle]

My first reaction was that Joi is the mole, because she was the only person who didn't immediatly annoy me in her talking head. But then she lead her team to total failure and I'm asking myself "wouldn't that be a bit suspicious for the mole, to sabotage that hard, in the first task?"

Well there was one other person who didn't immediatly annoy me and that was Jacob, but I think he's hot, so I'm probably not objective there.

William had a weird smirk in his talking head after saying "I didn't come here to lose money right away." but I have to assume the editors kept that in for a reason and he is not the mole.

When one of the girls screamed about "the really big spider" I was expecting something the size of my hand (2m man here), not that little itty bitty thing. These people really aren't the tough kind...

Not having two people at a time watch the cargo was a rooky move. Does nobody play D&D? You always have a watch. Guess it worked out for them but it could have just as well been the mole who took the case.

I guess they are not showing the result of the test in the episode, since they drop multiple at once and this way viewers have to start the next one to find out. Clever girl.

[PurpleTentacle]

On 10/10/2022 at 3:32 AM, SnarkShark said:

I won't say it's perfect compared to the Anderson Cooper version, but it's definitely good enough.

So far I like the german version and the Anderson Cooper version better than this, but maybe this will get better with time.

For those who don't know the mole was originally a belgian show and got licensed all over the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Mol_(TV_series)#International_versions

[aradia22]

I finally started watching this show tonight. I have no early guesses. It's way too early. Who is the most suspicious? Production, that's who. I was VERY surprised when they actually showed footage of Will and not a PA. I guess no one woke up to catch him. Though I do think it would have been hilarious if they'd caught a contestant or someone on the crew stealing the cargo. Imagine if the mole had gotten caught that early 😂

I feel like they were throwing a lot of heat at Joi, Will, and Greg in the edit. I think the format makes it very easy for production to manipulate this game. It has Big Brother energy but the fact that they're still doing the quiz means the Mole can't be voted out by the house. 

I think Alex is okay as the host so far. Friendly but not cloying. Professional but not trying to be too harsh or intimidating. I think the light up screen eliminations are dumb (especially if they're always going to leave it down to the final three). 

I feel like production really wanted us to think this was a diverse cast by emphasizing different careers up front and everyone's home state but I do wish they didn't look like people who could also qualify for Love is Blind. They're all relatively attractive. Like, putting aside face symmetry and whatnot, no one even has like visible acne or notable wrinkles, you know? They're TV normal and some of them could be on The Bachelor/Bachelorette. They're all relatively fit. No one is overweight. No one looks like they're older than their 40s. No one has a visible disability. Maybe they'll grow on me as we learn more about them but I'm ready to eliminate at least 5 of them right now. 

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I feel like the Mole would be helpful in this first mission, but not TOO helpful. Stand out a little bit but not too much. They wouldn't want to fail the first mission, or wouldn't want to be the reason for it.

I agree with this. I expected the Mole to be in Team Up High or Team H2O. Though it's a reminder that you can't always attribute suspicious behavior to malice when it could easily be incompetence. Or production. It didn't look like The Amazing Race. I have no idea what clues they were giving them to navigate. Maybe Team Down Low had the worst clues. Team H2O seemed far from their cargo spot but they did mention that they had 100 yards to search so maybe production were being assholes. Team Up High seemed to get right to that tree by following the map. 

[amykay9377]

On 3/15/2023 at 10:22 PM, aradia22 said:

They're all relatively attractive. Like, putting aside face symmetry and whatnot, no one even has like visible acne or notable wrinkles, you know? They're TV normal and some of them could be on The Bachelor/Bachelorette. They're all relatively fit. No one is overweight. No one looks like they're older than their 40s. No one has a visible disability. Maybe they'll grow on me as we learn more about them but I'm ready to eliminate at least 5 of them right now. 

And they're all hitting some sort of checklist... (not that it's a bad thing, but it's noticeable to me)... we have a White Woman, a Black Woman in a Male-Dominated Field, a Typical White Male, a Gay Male, a Middle-Eastern/Indian Male, a Latino Woman, and a handful of "regular" folks. Most with odd or oddly-spelled names. Because of all of this, my guess is that the Mole is going to be one of the "regular white folks," like Jacob, because it's okay to "demonize" a Cis White Male, but not a gay man or black man or black woman. 

I hope I'm wrong and that I'm seeing "Woke Boogeymen" where there are none, but many of my friends and coworkers who watch this have made the same comments.