Wie Is De Mol? - General Discussion

[Azgard12]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who watches shows like this for the hot men.

 

Tim and Art.  YUM.

 

Taeke is also... of interest to me.  (There's a pic of him in some shorts that brings this interest about.)

Edited January 22, 2016 by Azgard12

[stellavision]

Oh, certainly you're not the only one. (Though you guys can have Remy.) In fact, one of the most delightful things about the show is that no matter how quickly the hot contestants get kicked off...there's always Art. 

 

Shall we just go ahead and make lists of who our favorite past contestants have been, based on purely shallow criteria? Because Maarten van der Weijden! I would climb that tree.

Edited January 21, 2016 by stellavision

[SnideAsides]

And because he's an open-water swimmer, you know he's got plenty of stamina.

 

My top ten: Maarten, Freek, WIDM13 Tim (I'm anti-Kees, but his "I was just checking out his ass!" is one of the greatest WIDM moments ever), Jan-Willem, Freek's boyfriend WIDM8 Patrick, WIDM10 Tim, Jan, WIDM9 Dennis (thanks for the nudes <3), Art, Coen. I know WIDM7 hasn't been subtitled yet, but I'm also going to give an honorable mention to Paul. I mean, I could do without the hipster glasses, but look at the man.

[Trip]

Patrick and Freek made a ridiculously hot couple.

 

Perhaps we need a separate thread just for this sort of thing?  :-)

[SnideAsides]

Insert sexual objectification here.

[stellavision]

Patrick and Freek made a ridiculously hot couple.

 

Perhaps we need a separate thread just for this sort of thing?  :-)

Yes, yes I think we do.

 

Back to this week's episode. DAMN. I am bummed about who left. It was very obvious to me that she was not de Mol, but she was incredibly entertaining to watch. She's also kind of hot.

 

Tim has risen in my list of suspects. If he knew that the -500 had already been taken, then perhaps the thing de Mol would want next most after that, would be clues for the next test because that's information that could tell a clever kandidaat who de Mol is. (Although I guess it didn't work for the person who eventually ended up with those clues.)

 

I would also guess that de Mol is someone who went relatively late in the kayaking challenge. It would be a risk to go early, take canisters with minus signs in them, and then find out that the challenge proved too difficult for most (or all!) of the contestants, thus minimizing the number of people to point the finger at. But if you wait, observe, and see that a couple or more have succeeded in bringing back canisters before you did, then it's easier to hide.

[stellavision]

Also, although she was on my list of suspects last week, I'm going to go with Cecile not being de Mol.

 

I remember last week when the contestants were doing the test, someone wrote down a number beginning with 2, and after Art mentioned that the second-highest bid was 2345 euros, I was racking my brains to see whether I could remember who that was. In the intro to this week's episode, they showed that clip again -- it was Cecile -- as Art was voicing over the 2345 number. I just don't think the show would be that obvious about it if Cecile were really de Mol.

[stellavision]

Don't mind if I do!

 

I will take one each of Maarten van der Weijden, Jan-Willem Roodbeen, and Viktor Brand, please. (Also, Pieter-Jan, for all he was kind of dry as a host, is a bit of a silver fox.)

 

I realize we are all going to fight over Art and I'm okay with that.

Edited January 26, 2016 by stellavision

[Trip]

I am looking forward to the day when I can sit down with past cast photos and give this topic the serious deliberation it deserves.

 

I can pretty much guarantee that Patrick, Freek, Art, and Maarten will all place highly, and that no one from the current season will.

[SnideAsides]

I was just thinking how few athletes this show's given us. Like, I think it's just Maarten and Taeke? Even in the seasons without subtitles, the closest we get is a former coach of the Dutch national soccer team. :(

[Trip]

Jesus.  I don't think I've ever had a season where the first three candidates to be eliminated were basically my bottom 3 on my "who could be the Mole" list.  Does this mean Tim is next to go, since he seems next-least likely to be the Mole?

 

Really sorry to see Ellie go.  She was a lot of fun in her way, and was a good sport when people imitated her.

[Jeffurry]

You can have Tim and Art, I'd also take Taeke.

 

Tim and Art.  YUM.

 

Taeke is also... of interest to me.  (There's a pic of him in some shorts that brings this interest about.)

[Mike N]

I will be VERY interested to see how the group dynamic changes with Ellie gone. I mean, there are always some changes every week, but she was such a force in the group. I can't say that anything that happened today really affected who my top two Mole choices are (still Klaas and Rop). Both of them were suspiciously inconsequential in anything getting accomplished.

 

Although, the puzzles seemed to get harder as the climbing challenge went along, so Tim volunteering to go first and then confounding the solution of the probability puzzle could have been his way of intentionally screwing up early, knowing they'd need to get more of the later puzzles correct.

 

As far as the other topic is concerned (in no particular order): William S., Tim A., Tim H., Pieter D., Art, Patrick M., Dennis W., Dennis S., Coen, Taeke. These are mostly from memory, so I'm sure I've left someone out.

[stellavision]

I was just thinking how few athletes this show's given us. Like, I think it's just Maarten and Taeke? Even in the seasons without subtitles, the closest we get is a former coach of the Dutch national soccer team. :(

That IS sad. MOAR SWIMMERS PLEASE.

[stellavision]

Hmmm. In Aflevering 5 Tim was not looking very Mol-ish, either in the biking challenge or the boating challenge. I still wonder whether he's being conspicuous about earning small amounts of money for the pot so that he can escape notice as he keeps more substantial amounts out. He placed himself on the middle of the bridge in the "whisper down the lane" challenge, which seems like a prime place to screw things up. (Then again, that challenge seems like it would be nearly impossible even if no one is acting suspicious!)

 

Can anyone tell who suggested learning only one symbol per person before the group went out on the boats? Whoever said that was definitely a man, but I couldn't tell whose voice it was. If that suggestion had been followed, then for sure the group would have failed, so I'd really like to know who said it.

 

Oh, yeah, and I keeeeeeep going back and forth on Cecile. Do we think she might have ironed the money out because she knows the back of it contains her photo and she wanted to damage the ink in some way?

 

It's very sweet to see how the group so clearly misses Ellie.

Edited February 2, 2016 by stellavision

[Trip]

I'm still with the same three suspects but the order keeps changing.  After today, I think Taeke may be my #1, followed by Klaas and Rop.  (And yet again, someone not even remotely on my Mole list goes home, sigh.)

[stellavision]

Correcting myself: Can't believe I already forgot that it was *Taeke*, not Tim, who won big for the pot in the laser tag challenge, and then the next day the money fell right out of the pot.

 

He was in a great position to sabotage the biking challenge, although it seems like he reached Art so quickly that I wonder whether he had time to hide any envelopes.

[Trip]

Well, episode 6 wasn't the most action-packed, for sure.  And yet again, one of the players I was 100% certain was not the Mole leaves.  Of course the three people I've suspected since day 1 are still in the final 5.  My ordering has shifted yet again; I'm now with Klaas as the Mole, Taeke as backup, and Rop a distant third choice.  (In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if Klaas is so clearly the Mole that most or all of the group is already choosing him.)

 

I will say I don't care for all-or-nothing challenges that are rigged against the players from the start.  The set decoration challenge seems like a good one at first, but saying "exactly the same" isn't really fair: what does that mean?  If one flower stem is tilted at a slightly different angle in the vase due to nothing but gravity, would the challenge fail?  Would the tables being placed differently by 1/2 centimeter be enough to fail?  There need to be clear guidelines or else Art could ALWAYS say "oops, something isn't exact, you get nothing".  (My preference for this sort of challenge is to say something like "you start with $2000 but lose $200 for each significant difference I spot".)

[SnideAsides]

I don't know why, but there's definitely a much higher chance of bad challenges in Episode 6 of a WIDM season than there are at other points. It could be because they tend to either make it the non-elimination or the episode with the "win information!" filler non-challenge (in Japan's case, both, but that photography exhibition challenge managed to succeed in a way other challenges of that type usually don't), or it could just be that they blow their wads on ensuring a strong beginning and a strong finish and it gets lost in the middle, but something's never quite worked. Like the photography task was amazing, but the best Episode 6 challenge since is... Jan-Willem "hiding" in a parade?

[Trip]

I've been a little down on the challenges this season overall.  Too many unnecessarily all-or-nothing.  Like, there's no reason the "exchange the two stories" challenge couldn't have been $X per correct sentence, or $X minus $Y per error, or something.  No reason the "find the cutouts and recreate the photo" challenge couldn't have been $X per correctly placed contestant, or again X amount minus Y amount per error.  They do it sometimes -- as with the "put all these people back on the steps" challenge -- but not enough this season.

 

Challenges need to be a good balance of "possible to win" and "possible to Mole".  When it's all-or-nothing, especially if it's a multistep thing like the above challenges or the set decoration one, the balance is just pushed too far in favor of the Mole.

[SnideAsides]

Especially when all the other players are so game savvy that they're trying to act like the Mole. All-or-nothing challenges mostly worked in earlier Mole seasons where people didn't really know how to approach the game and were just incompetent (of course, now they probably practice things like lasertag that they suspect are going to come up, but fuck it up on purpose anyway), but now they're just tedious most of the time even if the idea is good (I actually really liked the identical room challenge as an idea) because you just know how the result is going to go.

 

I think part of the problem is that opening thing about making the Mole "the best prepared Mole ever". It's much less fun when all the sabotages are calculated and known well in advance than it is when the Mole is thinking of little things to do along the way. Like the negotiation challenge in Iceland that time was amazing, but it kind of ruined the season in hindsight when the reunion came around and we found out that the Mole that season had an earpiece and was listening in so they knew how to vote to ensure the team lost everything.

[stellavision]

I completely agree. How am I supposed to figure out who the Mole is if, even if everybody were working together perfectly and not sabotaging at all, they STILL probably wouldn't get everything exactly right? If there were chances for winning a smaller pot with partial success, then the Mole would have to try a little harder to keep money out of the pot, and maybe we viewers would have a chance at noticing. As it is, the Mole can do something very tiny -- or even nothing at all, since the candidates are all trying to sabotage a little bit or else will make an honest mistake that kills the whole thing -- and the result is the same as if the Mole had sabotaged in a bigger way.

 

This is especially frustrating because, as Trip points out, it would be so easy to design these challenges for partial success to count.

 

That being said, I'm gonna guess Rop isn't the Mole. His performance in the Spanish words challenge was just too obvious.

Edited February 10, 2016 by stellavision

[Trip]

Yeah, after this episode, I'm convinced I'm completely right: Klaas is De Mol and absolutely everybody knows it, which is why Rop lost on time.  (I correctly called him as the candidate who would be eliminated, just as I did with Cecile last time.)

 

Annamieke saved her exemption, right?  So she's in the finals, presumably with Tim.  I think Tim has been sharing info with Taeke hoping that Taeke would be an easy-to-beat finals opponent, but I suspect Annamieke might be a more formidable match for him.

[stellavision]

I'm also now on Klaas. The restaurant challenge made it for me -- I think he either chose a different restaurant than Rop and Taeke sent him to, or else went to the right place but told the owner while no one else was looking that he could take some extra time making the food if he wanted to. And then Annemieke basically told him that if he didn't use the black exemption, he was the Mole -- I think the subtext of that was, "You're the Mole and I know it, so you'd better burn that black exemption or else out yourself to everyone else."

 

I thought the black exemption BOTH negated everybody else's items AND guaranteed its holder a pass to the next round without seeing his/her screen. Otherwise why call it a black "exemption" rather than just "the killer" or a black something else? So I guess it ONLY negates others' items?

Edited February 15, 2016 by stellavision

[Trip]

No, I'm pretty certain it nullifies all exemptions and jokers including itself.

[Azgard12]

Count me as NOT on Team Klaas is the Mole.

 

I'm still fixated on something about Taeke.

 

Silly question, because I haven't seen several seasons...  Has the Dutch Wie is Die Mol ever done an elimninate the mole and then bring them back sort of thing?

[Watermelon]

I'm also now on Klaas. The restaurant challenge made it for me -- I think he either chose a different restaurant than Rop and Taeke sent him to, or else went to the right place but told the owner while no one else was looking that he could take some extra time making the food if he wanted to. And then Annemieke basically told him that if he didn't use the black exemption, he was the Mole -- I think the subtext of that was, "You're the Mole and I know it, so you'd better burn that black exemption or else out yourself to everyone else."

 

I thought the black exemption BOTH negated everybody else's items AND guaranteed its holder a pass to the next round without seeing his/her screen. Otherwise why call it a black "exemption" rather than just "the killer" or a black something else? So I guess it ONLY negates others' items?

They'd be better calling it a nullifyer.  It doesn't guarantee the holder anything, which is why I didn't see anything Moley about Klaas wanting to get Annemieke's jokers, and hold off on the black exemption.  All it really does is create a level playing field.  Assuming he was telling the truth, his deal with Annemieke would have benefits for them both.

 

I still don't know what I'm supposed to be seeing with Klaas.  Tim still reads super moley to me. It wasn't lost on me how he looked into the room with his luggage and swore he didn't see it until the second go round.  He ended up getting the only money for that challenge, but he also ran the time down, preventing Annemieke from even having a try at her luggage.

[stellavision]

After the money clock challenge, I've no doubt it's Klaas. Everybody else's actions got way more screen time than his, and the only clock he stopped was one that someone else was just about to get.

 

Kind of surprised they got the combination lock challenge. Seems like it wouldn't have been that hard for the Mole, knowing where things were in advance, to nudge a tile over the line, since it would only take one missed digit to nullify the whole challenge. Maybe Klaas is feeling sorry for the competitors at this point.

[EllieH]

I was wondering in the money clock challenge if maybe the Mole was Taeke, and he was trying to throw them off the scent by being the big winner in one game? Nope!

[SnideAsides]

Finally got around to changing the "Snarky Title Coming" bit of the thread title. Feel free to suggest something better.

[Trip]

I am dumbfounded that Taeke would still split his vote at this stage.

[Azgard12]

I give up.  I guess it must be Klaas.

[Watermelon]

I haven't seen the episode yet, but if Taeke is gone, I'll pick Tim til the end.  I never pick the right Mole, so I'm ok with this.

[Trip]

I'm rewatching this season now (after my weekly viewing party for season 16, we're watching an episode of 13, since none of the others have seen that one).  I'd forgotten how enjoyable I found it, and that's largely because I enjoy the cast so much.  Everyone is an interesting character: Pauline, Daniel, Zarayda, Tim, Tania... it's just a pleasure to watch them interact and play the games.  (And, yes, the opera house is an awesome scene.)

[Trip]

Remy looks so, so, so, SO much better without facial hair.  Take a gander: http://static.glamour.nl/thumbnails/genjPhotoPicture/detail/97/62/05/remy-van-kesteren-56297.jpg

[SnideAsides]

If anyone needs me, I'll be taking a cold shower for a little while.

[Trip]

As I told someone else, I feel proud that I recognized his latent hotness on the show despite that terrible facial hair doing its best to hide it.

[stellavision]

I am dumbfounded that Taeke would still split his vote at this stage.

Me too. Do we think he's being entirely truthful about that?

[stellavision]

I found the photography challenge annoying. I couldn't really tell what about a photo would render it acceptable or unacceptable. The fish being turned the wrong way = no good, but I think there were bigger differences in some of the other (accepted) photos. Of course, I've already forgotten what those differences were, so maybe I'm completely off base.

 

The last two challenges felt a bit pointless, anyway. I would have liked to see a challenge that required individual roles for each player, so that the real contestants would have to do a bit of thinking to figure out how to neutralize the Mole since they clearly know who it is at this point.

[Trip]

I agree on both counts.  The photography challenge felt like the two-rooms theater challenge where the parameters just weren't explained well to us (and maybe not to the contestants).

 

In the challenge about walking unseen to Art, I could have sworn Art said that Klaas had to walk there without stopping, but it seeemed like there were a number of places where the others said "Klaas, stop!" and he did.

[stellavision]

In the challenge about walking unseen to Art, I could have sworn Art said that Klaas had to walk there without stopping, but it seeemed like there were a number of places where the others said "Klaas, stop!" and he did.

I think you're right on that one, although he did do a bit of sidling from left to right to stay moving sometimes -- so maybe after a first fail or two they decided that "stop" meant "shuffle."

[Trip]

So, yeah.  No shock there -- had the Mole and the winner both correct.  As for the season as a whole -- it was good.  Not among the very best seasons, but (a) Art is still the best host they've had; (b) the cast was strong -- lots of fun personalities.  So those partly make up for a fair number of not-great challenges.  And even a mediocre WIDM is still far better than any US reality show, so I'll eagerly await season 17.

[SnideAsides]

Me too. As long as they get away from the fucking islands and beaches next time.

[Trip]

Two questions I still have that the episode didn't answer, and if anyone finds out, please let me know:

 

1.  Did Annemieke find Klaas's portrait on the money?  I thought that might have been the case when she left the money behind in her hotel room so that Tim couldn't get his hands on it --if I had info like that, I would make damn sure that no one else got access to it.

 

2.  What the hell happened in that challenge where people were biking to find answers to the trivia questions that Art was asking Taeke?  I had thought Taeke was deliberately moling by stealing envelopes, exactly as one of the kandidaten suggested, but on this episode Taeke suggested that when he screwed up, it wasn't deliberate.  I'd love to know who moled that challenge and how, because it sure seemed suspicious that so many envelopes got overlooked.

[SnideAsides]

Did anyone manage to save a copy of the reunion? I was downloading it when my wifi connection cut out, and by the time I got back on it had been pulled for copyright.

[Watermelon]

Did anyone manage to save a copy of the reunion? I was downloading it when my wifi connection cut out, and by the time I got back on it had been pulled for copyright.

It's back on youtube.

[stellavision]

Two questions I still have that the episode didn't answer, and if anyone finds out, please let me know:

 

1.  Did Annemieke find Klaas's portrait on the money?  I thought that might have been the case when she left the money behind in her hotel room so that Tim couldn't get his hands on it --if I had info like that, I would make damn sure that no one else got access to it.

 

2.  What the hell happened in that challenge where people were biking to find answers to the trivia questions that Art was asking Taeke?  I had thought Taeke was deliberately moling by stealing envelopes, exactly as one of the kandidaten suggested, but on this episode Taeke suggested that when he screwed up, it wasn't deliberate.  I'd love to know who moled that challenge and how, because it sure seemed suspicious that so many envelopes got overlooked.

 

Agree, I wish the finale were longer so that we could find out the answers to questions like that. What was the point of having the Mole's portrait on the back of the money if someone figured it out and they didn't show that, even after the Mole had already been revealed?

 

I also think the "Klaas's birthday" clues were pretty bogus. I can see it if the number 106 (or 610, given that Europeans usually write the date before the month) had been repeatedly referenced, but 16? And we were supposed to *add up* a bunch of numbers to get to 16? Not so much.

[stellavision]

Now that I've seen the finale, I will confirm that although I am a heterosexual female, I would not kick Ellie Lust out of bed for eating crackers.

[EllieH]

Finally got the chance to watch the finale after it was pulled/ reposted.  I agree with many of the above comments - fun cast which made for a fun season, but mediocre challenges kept it from being the best. 

 

Looking forward to next year!

[Trip]

I've now given this topic the serious research and consideration it deserves, and I've come up with my own personal Top 10 Guys of the Subtitled Seasons of WIDM.  I encourage you to Google Image the full names to get a sense of what they looked like on the show and what they look like now (I admit that the latter did change my list a bit, which may not be fair, but it's my list dammit).

 

Apologies to seasons 5 (whose hottest guy was probably Sander) and 13 (Daniel or Tim, I guess), but your casts just weren't hot enough to make my personal cut.

 

10.  Dennis Storm (season 9).  The 10th place spot was hotly contested (so to speak) and I'm not 100% sure I've chosen correctly over Jan-Willem (14) or a few others, but he's clearly a good-lookin' guy.

 

9.  William Spaaig (season 12).  Cute young little thing.

 

8.  Pieter Derks (season 15).  This adorably geeky little brainiac lasted all of one episode.  I was very sad to see the hottest guy from the cast (sorry, Viktor Brand) disappear so soon.

 

7.  Jan Kooijman (season 11).  Don't remember him on the show that much offhand, but I mean, LOOK at those Google Images.  Whoof.

 

6.  Maarten van der Weijden (season 12).  Tall, lanky, and those eyes!  As stellavision once said on these forums, "I'd climb that tree".

 

The top 5 are a clear step ahead of everyone else, for me.

 

5.  Tim Akkerman (season 10).  Andy Roddick lookalike -- what more needs to be said as justification?

 

4.  Remy van Kesteren (season 16).  I didn't think anyone from 16 would make the list, and then I saw the picture of Remy clean-shaven (see earlier post in this thread) and *instantly* he vaulted into my top 5.  As the reunion episode made clear, he cleans up very nicely.

 

3.  Art Rooijakkers (season 11, host 12-16).  About as objectively good-looking as it's possible to be.  Hard to imagine anyone looking at Art and going "nope, that guy is just not attractive".  My top 2 picks are there because they strike something in me personally, but I can understand them not appealing to everyone; Art is universal.

 

2.  Freek Bartels (season 14).  As I say, I know he's not everyone's taste, but YOWZA do I find him hot.  And formerly half of one of the hottest couples in the history of the world, the other half of which was ...

 

1.  PATRICK MARTENS (season 8).  I mean.  This guy looks good no matter what: long hair, short hair, shaved head; clean-shaven, stubbly, facial hair; dressed up in a tux, dressed casually ... this guy is just it.

 

And if you have any questions about the hotness of the Patrick/Freek pairing, let me just leave you with this image: http://www.show.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ANP-22245753-e1373384863818.jpg

Edited March 16, 2016 by Trip