Wie Is De Mol? - General Discussion

[David T. Cole]

A place for spoilers.

[David T. Cole]

10-4 good buddy.

[David T. Cole]

Sounds super dirty.

[SnideAsides]

Seriously, I'd really like to see a season without any walkie-talkie challenges. I don't know whether it was just because they were trying to keep the action tone without doing anything as risky as last year's cliff diving challenge, but it felt like overkill this year.

[SnideAsides]

I'm reliably informed it's pronounced "Art", so that clears up that issue.

[Elin]

I couldn't agree more! I know it's easy to 'mol' inconspicuously with walkie-talkies, but I've kind of seen all I can take of the "I couldn't hear you, you must've been out of range!" and "Don't press the button if you're not talking". You have my vote for a no-walkie-talkie-season, just let them use mobile phones, smoke signals or carrier pigeons.

[LakeGal]

I just finished watching season 11 of the Dutch Mole. So I know who Art is.

[SnideAsides]

I'm planning to undertake a rewatch in the next few weeks; I thought I'd start threads for the seasons with English subtitles in the meantime.

 

This one's probably my favourite Mole season ever. Amazing cast (Soundos is straight out of the 'lovably OTT' Australian-reality-show playbook), stunning yet unexpected locations (El Salvador is fucking beautiful, and Nicaragua was used far better here than on Survivor), mostly brilliant challenges (though there are a couple of stinkers, the success rate is bizarrely high)... it's hard to fault really.

Edited July 21, 2014 by SnideAsides

[Jeffurry]

I finished watching this season yesterday. I fell in love with Soundos!

[SnideAsides]

Yeah, not too proud of that title.

 

Playlist for this season.

 

Kind of a step down after the last two, but that's not entirely the producers' fault - a lot of this season had to be reworked at short notice once the cast was leaked as they left the Netherlands.

[SnideAsides]

The South Africa season. Playlist.

 

I go back and forth with this season - when it was good, it was excellent, when it was bad, it was horrid. Unfortunately the good episodes were right at the start and at the end, meaning there's a big-ass clomp of tedium right in the middle. It wasn't all producers' fault (you'll know what I mean if you've seen this season), but even so the challenges generally weren't as good this season as they have been.

[SnideAsides]

The Hong Kong/Philippines season. Playlist for the first eight episodes, then Episode 9 and Episode 10 separately.

 

Not the hugest fan of this one - after the previous season, it really needed something to hook me in, and the perfectly adequate components never quite combined together well enough to do it (possibly because producers deliberately played it safe) - but as much as it may not be the best season it's still not a bad one.

[SnideAsides]

Mexico.

 

I only just found out this one was subtitled, so I haven't had a chance to rewatch it yet, but I did watch it without the subtitles for a thing I was working on and I quite enjoyed it, so... there's that I guess?

[Watermelon]

I loved this season, just because I knew Art won and found it hilarious that everyone suspected him as the mole.  

 

This is one of the few Dutch seasons where I truly couldn't tell who it was.  

[SnideAsides]

All the episodes are here (edit 30/12/2014: most seem to have disappeared, I'm working on a way to get them available again), but the first challenge spoils the Moles for seasons 5, 6, 7, and 8 (5 and 8 are subtitled, 6 and 7 aren't yet), so skip to about 18:50 in Episode 1 if that sort of thing bothers you. Also, given it's in Northern Ireland (and Jordan), probably go find out what happened to RMS Titanic first if you don't already know, just in case.

 

This one's kind of an odd one. I like it and all, and it has a decent cast and some strong challenges (only on a Dutch show could you find a way to turn smoking hookahs into a challenge), but all in all the pieces don't quite mesh together that well? I don't know. Let's discuss, see if we can't work it out.

[SnideAsides]

The cast has been released. Share your speculation based on their cast photos now!

[Watermelon]

I'll go for Carolina or Rik as the Mole. 

 

I have no idea why.

[Trip]

I'm picking Pieter, just purely on his look.

[Trip]

Interesting ... I loved this season.  Maybe it's partly because it was the first season of WIDM I'd watched, so my impressions were pretty much "OMG, this blows American Mole out of the water", but even so, I really liked it.  It has perhaps the most are-you-freaking-KIDDING-me reveal of all time: I and pretty much everyone I know picked the winner as the Mole.

[SnideAsides]

It definitely blows American Mole out of the water. My first WIDM season was the El Salvador/Nicaragua one, and... like, that's an excellent season, but it's also such an excellent season that it's not the one you want to start with if you want anything else to compare well.

[EllieH]

I'll guess Rik or Viktor.

[SnideAsides]

Just a quick heads-up: Episode 1 should be up in a few days (it's just aired in the last couple of hours in the Netherlands); depending on how busy this thread gets I may turn it into a thread just for Episode 1 at some point.

[EllieH]

Episode 1 with English subtitles, for those looking for a place to watch it!

[Trip]

(Sorry, just reread SnideAsides' previous comment, so I'm retracting my question and commenting on episode 1.)

 

Not the most exciting episode 1 ever, but at least it wasn't translating flags on a boat.  We've seen the "video monitors in a deserted building" sort of challenge in an opening episode before, but I liked the idea of this one. 

 

Both challenges were really easy to sabotage by just about anyone, so I have no freaking clue who the mole could be at this point.  I thought a couple of people did slightly anti-mole things, but not strongly enough to actually rule anyone completely out yet.

 

Really happy to have this show back, and very thankful for the quick subtitler!

Edited January 3, 2015 by Trip

[B-Side]

Yeah, both challenges in this episode lent themselves to chaos (finding 5 people in a packed train station, setting up the cameras with multiple teams trying to check in at once), so I'm also not as sure just yet who's the Mole.  I've got a theory, but I want at least one more episode before I make any hard predictions.

 

Did not expect who went home to go home (although the first test feels harder because you've only had 2 challenges to figure people out).  VERY happy to have the show back - hooray for a quick subtitler!

[stellavision]

Not that I've ever been successful with early picks on this show, but I'm going with the contestant who said s/he was night-blind in the second challenge. Blindness and de Mol have been associated on previous seasons, if I'm remembering correctly.

 

(But given my past record of Mol predictions, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if s/he's eliminated next.)

[Jeffurry]

Good catch! That person was on my list of too "fanatik"/not in the right place to be de Mol, but I'm really bad at Mol predictions as well.

[Jeffurry]

Then again, I think I'm confused as to which contestant said s/he was night blind. 

[EllieH]

 

Both challenges were really easy to sabotage by just about anyone, so I have no freaking clue who the mole could be at this point.

 

Agreed.  And I think the grand total of $0 in the pot means there was loads of sabotage going on by the non-Mole contestants.

 

While I won't make any guesses as to the identity of the mole yet, I'm going to guess its not Ajouad, whose gameplay seemed rather clunky.  He could turn it around though, we shall see!

[stellavision]

Agreed.  And I think the grand total of $0 in the pot means there was loads of sabotage going on by the non-Mole contestants.

 

While I won't make any guesses as to the identity of the mole yet, I'm going to guess its not Ajouad, whose gameplay seemed rather clunky.  He could turn it around though, we shall see!

 

Even if I weren't stuck on Ms. Night-Blind to start, I also would definitely rule out Ajouad. Although I found it suspicious that he found an envelope almost immediately -- and lo and behold, it's the only one that does not contain money -- he was a little too obvious about it. If he were de Mol I think he'd have let it come out more gradually that he found the exemptions.

[SnideAsides]

Setting the thread up; I'll edit the title into the... title... once the episode airs.

[Trip]

Not that I've ever been successful with early picks on this show, but I'm going with the contestant who said s/he was night-blind in the second challenge. Blindness and de Mol have been associated on previous seasons, if I'm remembering correctly.

 

I sort of lump this together with the fact that Carolina was wearing green fingernail polish (at least at the execution, perhaps the rest of the time as well, I don't recall): while it could be a hidden clue, it could just as easily be someone trying to look molish by planting a hidden clue.

My initial feeling is that the mole is a woman, so either of these could be correct, but I'm not going to put too much stock in them yet.

 

Also: why was the episode called "Reading and Writing"?  Neither challenge had anything to do with either of these.  I'm wondering if perhaps there's a hidden message in the notes in the episode (which were, I believe, in Courier, so there could be something in the letters in the columns).  I didn't see anything in the initial letters of the sentences, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there was a clue for viewers in there somewhere.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Trip

[SnideAsides]

I just found out yesterday that I actually know of Rik (one of the Australian TV networks runs foreign-language news bulletins during the day, and the Dutch bulletin they use is the one he hosts), so... that's three now. Let's hope he does better in the game than Hind and Maarten van der Weijden. And that they pony up the money to get my darling Sven Kramer on a future season. (Shallow, me? Never!)

 

This season looks promising. Admittedly the train station challenge was yet another in the long line of Mole season-opening challenges that sound good but aren't actually all that interesting (though at least it wasn't another quiz or hiking/navigation affair), but the warehouse challenge in the Northern Ireland season is one of my personal favourites and it was great to see them find a way to revisit it.

 

I'd wonder if the "writing" part of "Reading and Writing" referred to the new font in the graphics and on the test (which I'm not sold on, but at least they didn't go all the way back to the Comic Sans era), but I have no idea how that would tie into the Mole's identity.

[EllieH]

Episode 2 is up!

 

Thanks again to whoever is subtitling this (if they read here) for your quick work!

[stellavision]

I also thought "reading and writing" was an odd title, and almost certainly points to a clue of some kind. Probably one needs to know more Dutch than I've learned from watching this show to find said clue, sadly.

[Trip]

I liked the challenges, particularly the "reconstruct the gallery" one: simple to grasp, and possible to sabotage in various ways.

 

Also, I'm pleased that for ONCE, the person who got eliminated was one of my Mole possibilities.  It seems like whenever I'm confident someone is NOT the Mole, that person gets eliminated, which doesn't help me at all.

[SnideAsides]

I really wish this show would release episode titles before they air.

[EllieH]

Week 3 - Betrayed

 

Enjoy!

 

Thoughts after having watched it -- I've still got too many suspects to settle on one Mole.  I'm inclined to lump Rik in with Ajouad, in my "not the Mole because they are too clunky at sabotage" group.  Although Ajouad sort of came back onto my radar, not so much because I noticed him doing anything odd, but because no one commented on him being a suspect on the test.  And the "no one is eliminated" twist was kind of frustrating, we need to thin the herd a little more!

Edited January 18, 2015 by EllieH

[SnideAsides]

My only problem with the non-elimination, really, was that having it in Episode 3 is getting too predictable. That's now three years in a row - Episode 3 last year was the "pair up and pick someone to decide who sees their results" episode, and Episode 3 the year before was the weird one where everybody got sent away once they saw the green screen. I mean I get there were... other circumstances that led to the one two years ago, but still. That was the first one. It's not like they'd done it two years in a row and then had what happened happen.

 

I'm really liking this season. I don't think it'll top the El Salvador/Nicaragua one, which is still probably the best Mole season I've seen, but it's definitely one of the better ones, I think. I may be overcompensating for rewatching the most recent Australian disaster during the break though, so make of that what you will.

[SnideAsides]

May or may not involve things happening?

[stellavision]

So...ep 3 had quite a bit of chaos going on, especially in the first challenge. I have a theory that the Mole is someone who was wearing light-colored clothing, since they were told only that there was a challenge in the dark. The Mole might have preferred to choose an outfit that was easier for the snipers to see. On the other hand, what better way to gain undeserved trust than to make it through the maze...yet bring back so little money? Perhaps that envelope contained more when it was picked up than when it was delivered.

 

The suspicious missing of the end goal in the flyover challenge seems so focused-on by the show editing (and the cover story so clumsy) that I wonder whether it's someone pretending to be the Mole rather than actual mole-ing.

Edited January 21, 2015 by stellavision

[Watermelon]

I've always wondered how the contestants differentiate between real mole behavior and people acting like the mole to throw suspicion on them.

[Trip]

Most people acting like the Mole tend to be too frequent and obvious about it.  I've almost completely ruled out Chris as the actual Mole, for example, because he seems to be doing just that.

[Jeffurry]

Finally, someone gets eliminated who wasn't anywhere near my suspicious list.

[EllieH]

 

Finally, someone gets eliminated who wasn't anywhere near my suspicious list.

 

Agreed!  Viktor was creeping up my suspicions list this week, as was Chris.

 

And it cracked me up when they were discussing the black exemption at the end, and someone asked Carolina if she played it, to which she responded "because I'm black?"

[SnideAsides]

Every year there's one challenge clip in the credits that makes me raise my eyebrows, and this year it's those floating city names. Let's hope it's a good challenge.

[Watermelon]

I thought it was fairly obvious Martine was lying about having the black exemption.  It also seemed to me Marlijn stood directly in front of the square of instructions during the picture challenge.

 

I would venture to say the mole isn't one of the 3 who picked the higher group in the name game. It's an easy way to sabotage because those challenges always go to a vote and groups always pick low.  It was clear Ajoued had basically all the ladies names memorized.

[stellavision]

Agreed!  Viktor was creeping up my suspicions list this week, as was Chris.

 

And it cracked me up when they were discussing the black exemption at the end, and someone asked Carolina if she played it, to which she responded "because I'm black?"

 

Easily my favorite moment of the episode!

 

Ajouad wasn't playing the game well -- it was too obvious he wasn't de Mol -- but I'm going to miss him. He grew on me.

[stellavision]

Awwww, my ONE piece of eye candy this season...gone! (At least Art never goes home.)

 

I was combing the postal codes that were shown onscreen to see whether anybody's initials turned up. No luck.

[Trip]

I'm still really torn as to the Mol.  I feel like it's one of the women but there's been a fair amount of evidence pointing to each of them.  I'm still giving Carolina a slight lead, just because I'm stubborn.

 

And it's hard to totally rule out Chris; perhaps his constant Moling isn't as obvious to the others as it is to the viewers?  I think it's likely he was the saboteur in the Geldrop challenge, and no one called him on it.

 

Interestingly, the official website shows Rik with a sizable lead in the viewer poll, whereas he's at the bottom of my suspect list.